The Magpies

by Mark Edwards

[zooloo1983]

Holy fricking moly!! Wow, this book! I blitzed this book basically in two sittings! I had a whole day of work where I sat and listened to it and because I was so close to finishing I read the last half hour of it as I had to get this one finished. I needed to get the bat shit crazy people out from under my skin and scrub my skin in a cold shower so I was not tainted! I have not read anything so chilling and the fact that some elements were based on Edwards real-life experienced just freaked me out more!! I have to also shout out to the narrator Elliot Hill, wow you did a fab job and your voice kept me hooked the entire time!

Do not get me wrong I had a gripe with this book and his name is Jamie, the sweet and so naive Jamie! How he let things escalate the way he did and the silly things he did I wanted to give him a blinking good shaking.

There no ghosts rattling around, no malevolent spirits, the true evil in this book……well humans! I know! The behaviour of these people towards Jamie and Kirsty made my blood run cold when “unexplained” accidents happened it made you want to scream at the top of your lungs to get the heck out of that flat and move away and quick. Ignore your pride, ignore how amazing the flat is, just go! Leave now! But did they listen, well what do you think!!

Oh, I have another gripe, and if you have read this book then you may know what I will say SPIDERS!!! The entire passage on spiders and them coming out of everything, Jesus wept do you want me to have a heart attack! Seriously I was on edge and I kept looking around my office and my front room in case there were any coming my way, it was freaky deeky for sure! How they got in, and so many of them too, well I will never know and to be honest I do not want to, my skin is crawling – urgh!

I loved how this book played out, in some places it could have been trimmed down a fraction, but overall my god this is a terrifying book of what could happen in reality. Even at the end well I felt no relief and knowing this is only the first book in the series has set my teeth on edge. I mean I am now going to get the next book but I am nervous. I have no clue what might happen and who will be ok!

From the prologue, you wonder how this will end, a couple leaving their dream flat, but why? What has driven them away? All we know, the voices, the voices that won’t go away. What?! Right get me out of there now. Moving on to Jamie and Kirsty, building their life together and they then find their dream flat, and it’s perfect. However, first night a hoax call is made to the fire department, no one knows who called them or why so we ignore it as a one-off. Yet, more and more things happen, more calls, more post, a baby screaming in the middle of the night and then the two freak and heartbreaking accidents happen and you just can not ignore it anymore. Can you trust anyone?

This book just shows you what can happen when obsession just steps over that line and takes control, not just from the people torturing Jamie and Kirsty but how it infects their day to day lives and takes over. The fact someone is revelling in all the fear and terror that they (and you) feel, well sleepless nights here we come! Edwards has gauged how much terror to plough into the book which he counters with the normalcy and mundane which amplifies everything that occurs. The light vs the dark and at times all these lines are blurred, when does the hunted become the hunter.

God, The Magpies is a rollercoaster of terror and fear, and it is also one I did not want to end! It was fantastic, now if you excuse me I am off to get the next book in the series!