by Mo Hayder (Bantam Press)
A shocking and disturbing thriller. Now there’s a nice recommendation!
Author Mo Hayder certainly knows how to manipulate and grip her reader, to the point where I plunged into this disturbing story and did not come up for air until around 4am, at the finish.
Sunshine, lollipops and a happy ending – Hayder does not know the meaning of the stuff. She grips you by the throat and then proceeds to present a scenario so nightmarish, yet plausible, you might need a stiff drink at the finale.
Plot? Think Straw Dogs, times 10.
This is my first Hayder read, hence I was not familiar with her unusual, short, sharp narrative style, or her central character, DI Jack Caffery. Caffery’s bona fides have already been established in a stream of thrillers, but I soon got the lay of his land – and it is mine-strewn.
A flinty, good-looking 40-something, for many years Caffery has been going through a Madeleine McCann-type scenario, trying to discover what happened to his brother, kidnapped as a child and never seen again.
On top of this, he has been handed a lost dog. On the dog’s collar is a torn cryptic message – HELP US.
Somewhere out there in the remote countryside, a family in the throes of a sadistic attack – the second time they have been embroiled in a nightmare scenario.
My imagination was going wild as I galloped along.
And it all got much worse… Where Hayder gets her ideas from, who knows. A twisted mind?!
An earlier Hayder book, The Treatment, was voted “one of the top 10 most scary thrillers ever written.”
Brilliantly told, Wolf gave me nightmares.