Reviewed by pamela on
Jack Caffery has returned but in a different setting. There are unresolved threads from his previous life in London which aren't dealt with, and all the characters we'd become invested in are replaced by Caffery's new object of affection with almost no mention of the police force at large.
While the pace of the plot is speedy and exciting just like Hayder's other novels, this one felt somehow unfinished. I did not feel satisfied toward the end, and felt like too much had been left unfinished. So much of the plot also relied on coincidences between the characters which were almost laughably contrived as it was Caffery's first case in Bristol.
Hayder once again shows herself to be a talented writer, as I felt myself unwilling to put the book down and just kept turning pages to find out what happened next. However getting to the end left me disappointed that there hadn't been more to it. With such a big set up, the end came too quickly and too anticlimactically to leave me feeling any sense of resolution.
Will I read the next Caffery thriller? Almost certainly, if only to find out if the resolution that I found so lacking in this novel will appear in the next.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 4 January, 2015: Finished reading
- 4 January, 2015: Reviewed