Pretty Evil by Zoe Rosi
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 15th January 2023
Published: 19th January 2023
★★★★ 3.5 stars (rounded up)
DESCRIPTION:
You’ve done a bad thing. She has you in her sights. Now you’re going to pay.
Meet Camilla Black: an affluent, respected, influential fashion magazine editor, who lives it up in her beautiful Mayfair apartment. But Camilla’s glamorous life is a lie. Behind her poised exterior beats the cold dark heart of a vigilante killer, a murderer hell-bent on wreaking vengeance upon bad men.
Camilla expects to get away with murder. She’s careful. And anyway, it’s worth the risk. She’s making the world a better place with each predator she kills. But when one of her victims’ bodies is unexpectedly found, his gruesome death is splashed all over the papers.
To make matters worse, she’s now being pursued by Detective Wheelan, a new addition to the Met with laser-sharp focus and a worrying habit of solving impossible crimes…
She knows she should stop, but she can’t. Some men just deserve to die. Will Camilla’s insatiable appetite for justice be her downfall, or can she outsmart the police?
MY THOUGHTS:
Trigger warning: rape, child abuse, paedophilia, grooming and violence against women. Also lots of foul language and graphic sex scenes.
By day, Camilla Black is a glamorous fashion editor for a high-end fashion magazine but by night, she is someone else entirely. She is a predator who preys on other predators, seeking them out, flushing them out and righting the wrongs of the justice system in the form of an avenging angel. But can she continue to get away with it?
PRETTY EVIL is not your average psychological thriller. It's no popcorn thriller either. It's very character driven in the form of Camilla who is very complex that not even the reader can make her out. You can understand her motives but there is something far deeper lurking beneath the surface that we don't really get to see...only glimpses of. She is completely narcissistic and thinks herself far cleverer than the police or anyone else who have no idea who she really is. She outlines all the ways she has outsmarted the police and yet still they cannot catch her. But is time running out for this vigilante avenging angel?
The opening scenes thrust the reader straight into the action. Camilla is on a Tinder date with one Julian Taylor. She knows what he is. She's heard the rumours. She's googled him and done her research. What predator doesn't research her prey? Those who think they are too good to be caught. Like Julian. She sees him slip a roofie into her wine and instead the tables are turned and he (the predator) becomes the prey. But has she become too clever for her own good?
Despite her dark nature, the reader finds themselves rooting for Camilla even though we know what she is doing is completely wrong. I think the first person narrative lends something like a little sympathy for her, particularly as her past and the events that turned her into a narcissistic psychopath are gradually revealed. Personally, Camilla is not someone I would warm to in real life. She is aloof, arrogant, vain, narcissistic, snobbish, single-minded and unsympathetic. Cold, even. She drops designer names like I eat chocolate (I'd only heard of Alexander McQueen from another thriller I had only just read). She is confident and likes the power her position gives her and loves the sound of her Jimmy Choos click-clacking on the marble floor of her office building. Yes, she is so cold at times she is glacial. And yet, still I found myself cheering her on.
Throughout the story, told in Camilla's first person narrative, we learn a lot about her so there is no real mystery. There are several flashbacks, a lot of analysing over her targets and how to best bring them down. From the start we know exactly what she is doing. The only mystery is how it will all end. Will Camilla continue in her quest to rid London of the sexually depraved or will she be unmasked? Or will she kiss goodbye to her darker side and settle down with the one thing she craves - love?
Love...is that what she's looking for when she calls up one of her "lovers" to release some of her built-up sexual tension? And she's not overly picky either. She has three she regularly calls on. Mr USA who is currently in Hollywood so is out of the picture. Abay, a gorgeous Nigerian so ripped she demands dominance from him and welcomes it. And then there is Vanessa. She's a student with the best set of breasts Camilla has ever seen. And let me tell you, the sex scenes (of which there are two - one with Abay and one with Vanessa) ARE graphic. But these can easily be skimmed over if you prefer.
Now it has to be said, PRETTY EVIL has overtones of everyone's favourite serial killer Dexter and if you like "Dexter" then chances are you will enjoy this little book of evil as well. Even the setting of the scene for one of her targets bears such a striking resemblance to Dexter's MO - photos, plastic sheeting, rubbish bags, power saw... But Camilla is colder than Dexter. Both are calculating but I found Dexter charming and funny...Camilla, not so much. I found her to be a bit of a bitch, actually. I didn't particularly like her despite rooting for her throughout.
PRETTY EVIL was a great read and very different in concept and context. In fact, the opening scenes are a retelling of based on the author's own experience...but with an obvious difference. This book was her way of processing what she had been through.
You can read the article recently published in relation to Zoe's experience and PRETTY EVIL here.
Overall though, PRETTY EVIL is pretty graphic. In tone, in violence and in sex. It is gritty, dark and twisted. It is not a book for everyone. There is a lot - and I do mean A LOT - of foul language. And I'm not just talking the f-bomb. Words I don't even like to utter myself and they make me cringe when I see them in a book.
Truthfully, this is a hard book to rate. I didn't NOT like it but I didn't love it either. But the ending I felt was a little rushed and while I felt a little high five, I would have liked a little more to have gone into the playing out - both at the warehouse and in the last chapter. But overall, it was still a great read, albeit a hard one to rate. So I think 3.5 stars rounded up because it was really good in concept but losing a little in the rushed ending.
PRETTY EVIL was previously published as "Predator" which I personally feel is a better fit for this book than the new title.
I would like to thank #ZoeRosi, #Netgalley, #AmazonPublishing and #RachelsRandomResources for an ARC of #PrettyEvil in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Zoe's thriller, Someone's Watching Me, comes out in September.
Pretty Evil is due to be published in January 2023. It has been optioned for TV by Corestar Media.
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