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Jonathan Dark or the Evidence of Ghosts – A.K. Benedict

Maria King knows a secret London. Born blind, she knows the city by sound and touch and smell. But surgery has restored her sight – only for her to find she doesn’t want it.

Jonathan Dark sees the shadowy side of the city. A DI with the Metropolitan Police, he is haunted by his failure to save a woman from the hands of a stalker. Now it seems the killer has set his sights on Maria, and is leaving her messages in the most gruesome of ways.

Tracing the source of these messages leads Maria and Jonathan to a London they never knew. Finding the truth will mean seeing a side to the city where life and death is a game played by the powerful, where everyone is lost but nothing is missing, and where all the answers are hiding, if only they listen to the whispers on the streets.

Shot through with love and loss, ghosts and grief, A K Benedict weaves a compelling mystery that will leave you looking over your shoulder and asking what lurks in the dark.

My thanks to Orion for my review copy which I received through Netgalley.

Ghosts – it is right there in the title…Jonathan Dark and the Evidence of Ghosts does contain actual ghosts (lots of them). But it is not a ghost story, well not in the traditional ‘haunted house’ ghost story way that you may have initially imagined.

In Jonathan Dark we learn that ghosts are all around us, they are living amongst us and (on rare occasions)interacting with the environment around us. Most of us cannot see these ghosts but a select few people can look beyond the normal and see the spirits around us. There are a few key characters in Jonathan Dark who are actually ghosts – it works brilliantly, their capacity to interact with the main characters is virtually nil but they have a massive impact on the story.

Having accepted the fact there are ghosts in the book you can now get on with enjoying a brilliant crime story which contains the threat of a murderous stalker, a powerful crime syndicate with a chilling recruitment ritual and an evil entity which feasts on the neurosis and fear of its victims.

The most chilling aspect of Jonathan Dark was the danger that A.K. Benedict heaped upon Maria King. Maria was born blind but has recently undergone surgery that was able to give her the ability to see for the first time. Maria is reluctant to give up the darkness she has known and still elects to wear a blindfold rather than accept the reality of how the world around her looks.

Following the shocking discovery of an engagement ring left for her to find ***Spoilers prevent me from telling you WHY it was shocking*** Maria is further rocked by the revelation that her flat has been equipped with video cameras which have allowed someone to spy on her while she believed herself safe (and alone) at home.

The police are called and head of the investigative team is the titular Jonathan Dark – a wonderfully complex character who has more than his share of secrets too. Dark is facing a race against time to keep Maria safe from the stalker and his investigations will bring him into direct competition with the powerful crime syndicate who do not like the thought of the police getting too close to some of their members.

I want to tell you more, there are so many side plots I want to discuss, characters that I would love to see feature in future books and there is something that Dark does which makes me want to know WHY! But I can only hope he returns and that A.K. Benedict gives us more of these wonderful stories.

I wish that every book I read was as enjoyable as Jonathan Dark and the Evidence of Ghosts. A 5/5 review score is a given.

Jonathan Dark and the Evidence of Ghosts is published by Orion on 25 February 2016 and can be ordered here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jonathan-Dark-Evidence-Ghosts-Benedict-ebook/dp/B00M88VQWS/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1456184627&sr=1-1

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August 7

The Killing Lessons – Saul Black

When the two strangers turn up at Rowena Cooper’s isolated Colorado farmhouse, she knows instantly that it’s the end of everything. For the two haunted and driven men, on the other hand, it’s just another stop on a long and bloody journey. And they still have many miles to go, and victims to sacrifice, before their work is done.

For San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart, their trail of corpses – women abducted, tortured and left with a seemingly random series of objects inside them – has brought her from obsession to the edge of physical and psychological destruction. And she’s losing hope of making a breakthrough before that happens.

But the slaughter at the Cooper farmhouse didn’t quite go according to plan. There was a survivor, Rowena’s 10-year-old daughter Nell, who now holds the key to the killings. Injured, half-frozen, terrified, Nell has only one place to go. And that place could be even more terrifying than what she’s running from.

Thanks to Orion for my review copy, received through Netgalley

The Killing Lessons opens with a brutal attack on a family – two men enter their home and butcher a mother and her son. 10 year old Nell is also in the house but she manages to escape and begins a desperate flight for freedom through the woods at the back of her remote home.

Valerie Hart is a homicide detective who has been trying to track down a serial killer who mutilates female victims and leaves an obscure and seemingly random object inserted into their body. Hart has a great reputation amongst her colleagues, however, she feels increasing under pressure as the long hunt for this elusive killer drags on.

The Killing Lessons splits the story between Hart and her colleagues, the killers and young Nell who has found refuge in an unlikely place – yet she remains in jeopardy as the isolated haven she finds does not offer her the opportunity to contact the police.

The story is brilliantly balanced and Hart is an engaging lead character that you quickly find yourself rooting for. The dynamic between the two killers is fascinating. There is clearly an Alpha Male in the partnership, however, their relationship turns out to be quite complex and Saul Black unveils nuggets of detail as we learn more about the pair’s murderous past.

The Killing Lessons had me hooked from the outset. Seeing the hunt for a killer unfold while also keeping up with the murderers and knowing how close (or not) they were to capture was compelling reading. The final showdown was the perfect finale too.

An absolute must read for crime fiction fans.

The Killing Lessons is published by Orion and is available in Hardback and digital format.

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March 18

The Death House – Sarah Pinborough

Toby’s life was perfectly normal… until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test.

Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House: an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he, and the others who live there, are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They’re looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it’s time to take them to the sanatorium.

No one returns from the sanatorium.

Where to start with this haunting story?

We have a world very similar to our own – yet very different. Children appear to be susceptible to a mysterious ‘defective’ gene. They are all tested for the deficiency and for those that are identified as having the deficiency are shipped off to a remote island to live in virtual isolation in The Death House. There they will remain until their (undefined) illness triggers and they are taken to the sanatorium. They never return.

The main focus of The Death House is very much the children – nurses and teachers are peripheral characters. We are guided through the story by Toby, he is one of the older children in residence and holds a degree of influence over the younger kids. As is the way of any group factions and friendships are formed and, for the most part, the kids get on with life in their unusual out of time existence. I say out of time as there are references to old books, record players and old games – no videogames, mobiles or modern tech on show here.

There is the constant threat of illness and a trip to the sanatorium lurking over the whole story, however, for the majority of the reading you could be mistaken into believing you were reading a coming of age story or an updated take on the boarding school tales of our childhood. Imagine Jennings or Mallory Towers with the children boarding in The Shining’s Overlook Hotel.

The Death House is not the longest of books, however, Sarah Pinborough makes every page count. You care about all the characters, you fear the sounds in the night when children are removed from their dorms and taken to the sanatorium and you will love Toby’s story…right until the point where Sarah Pinborough hits you with a sucker punch that will leave you reeling.

There are so many unanswered questions in The Death House but it doesn’t matter – this is masterful writing, just go with it.

The Death House is published by Gollancz and is available now in Hardback and digital format.

http://sarahpinborough.com/

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