REVIEW: Sole Survivor by Gaynor Torrance (ARC)

Sole Survivor (DI Jemima Huxley #2) by Gaynor Torrance

Genre: Crime fiction, Police procedural, Thriller

Read: 18th June 2020

Goodreads

Purchase: Amazon

(publication date: 6th March 2020)

★★★★ 4 stars

SOLE SURVIVOR is the second in the DI Jemima Huxley series set in the north Cardiff area of South Wales. If you missed the previous book, don't worry as this can be read as a standalone. After a particularly gruesome case in the first book "Revenge", which was one of the most shocking cases of her career, Jemima returns several months later after having to face some of her personal demons that often clouded her judgement.

Jemima is on a rare day off when she receives a call to another particularly gruesome murder scene. Details are sketchy but upon arriving at the scene in the exclusive Briarmarsh Close, she is shocked to learn that the entire Rathbone family has been butchered, leaving four dead. Only the teenage daughter Millie survived but her injuries are so brutal it is uncertain if she will recover and she remains in a critical condition in hospital.

Jemima and her team begin questioning friends and neighbours of the family, revealing some interesting family dynamics. Bradley Rathbone was a psychiatrist at the University Hospital of Wales while his wife Sally was a doctor in private practice. The two teenage children were Jonathan and Lauren and were Bradley's brother's children, their parents having been killed in a boating accident the year before. Millie, the sole survivor, is Bradley's daughter from his first marriage whose mother is currently serving a prison sentence for the murder of her 10 month old baby when Millie was 7 years old.

Robbery was quickly ruled out as the crime scene was particularly vicious. No burglar would expend so much energy into stabbing one victim thirty five times and seventeen for another. Particularly given that the two teenage victims were suffocated prior to being stabbed. Why even bother to stab them so viciously if they are already dead? This in itself displayed a huge amount of rage towards the victims. And if that was the case, why kill the parents? Is it some kind of personal vendetta? Was someone out for revenge against the family? Was there a prime target? Or was this just a random attack? So many questions left unanswered has Jemima searching for clues that will lead them to the killer.

Then when Jemima learns that Brad's first wife Isobel has been released from prison, she becomes their prime suspect as the team begin to search for her whereabouts and Jemima wonders if Millie, as the sole survivor, is suddenly at risk.

There are a wealth of suspects to consider as the team dig further to uncover the truth.  From a teacher to the next door neighbour to a psychotic patient to an ex-wife who was in prison for murder...everyone seems to have a different version of the family. So who is lying and who is telling the truth?

Meanwhile Jemima has problems on the home front. Ever since her husband Nick outed her self harming to her boss things have been strained between the couple. Not to mention the time she took an innocent walk with her godson Harry at his christening party, leaving everyone frantic with worry that she had kidnapped him, Jemima was shocked to discover that Nick believed she had done just that. Now the couple have Nick's son James living with them after the tragic death of his mother in a car accident, but Jemima appears to be more of a parent to James than Nick, who sits in the kitchen drinking from dawn till dusk...accusing Jemima of caring about her job more than them. But then the couple receive some devastating news that will turn their worlds upside down, as Jemima tries to stay strong for young James.

I have to say I much preferred Jemima in this book than I did in the first one, where she bored on self-absorption to the point of obsession. In SOLE SURVIVOR, she has been to counselling - albeit forced, but incredibly helpful - and while she was unable to have a child of her own, she now finds herself a parent to James who she loves just as much as if he were her own. She has a good camaraderie with her team who are all incredibly likable, making reading the book a pleasant experience. I must also add that I love the pathologist, John Prethero, and his wicked sense of humour.

I really enjoyed SOLE SURVIVOR even though I had worked out who was responsible from very early on. But that never spoils my enjoyment or detracts from the story as it is always a guessing game anyway...I could have been wrong.

Although incredibly well written, I did find SOLE SURVIVOR to be a little slower paced that the previous book which had me on tenterhooks from start to finish. However, Gaynor Torrance has a tendency to shock as both books so far in this promising series lead the reader through tension-filled moments culminating to shocking conclusions. While I did suspect the killer, there were definitely some shocking moments throughout the book.

An excellent addition to what is becoming a promising new series, SOLE SURVIVOR is a a unique mix of thriller and police procedural, though not for the fainthearted. Recommended for fans who like their crime thrillers dark.

I would like to thank #GaynorTorrance, #NetGalley and #SapereBooks for an ARC of #SoleSurvivor in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: Revenge by Gaynor Torrance (ARC)

Revenge (DI Jemima Huxley #1) by Gaynor Torrance

Genre: Crime fiction, police procedural, thriller

Read: 12th October 2019

Goodreads

Purchase: Amazon
(publication: 7th October 2019)

★★★★ 3.5 to 4 stars

Whoa! What did I just read?

As the first in a new series by Gaynor Torrance featuring the somewhat troubled DI Jemima Huxley, it goes without saying that REVENGE is a very dark and incredibly twisted crime novel. It is nothing like you would expect. What starts out as a slow moving narrative into Jemima's obsession with conceiving soon becomes an all too real reminder to be careful what you wish for.

But before I go any further, I must begin with a trigger warning. This book is packed full of triggers - rape, domestic abuse, infertility, self harm, incest - not to mention the usual run-of-the-mill gruesome factors of a murder investigation, which are also incredibly detailed and graphic in nature. If any of these issues are a trigger for you or make your stomach turn, then I would consider this as a warning before choosing to read REVENGE.

The Prologue is somewhat graphic, leaving little to the imagination, and yet it is puzzling to the reader as to what it might mean. So we shelve it in our minds to return to when things start to become clearer. If nothing else, this killer is both relentless and sadistic.

We then open with two chapters of narrative surrounding DI Jemima Huxley and her innermost thoughts and the demons with which she struggles in her attempts to conceive. It is almost slow going, bordering on irritating when she passes silent judgement on her DS' inability to form some sort of routine with their now three month old baby - as if she's suddenly the expert on parenting.

DS Dan Broadbent hasn't had a complete nights sleep since the arrival of their little screaming bundle of joy, and habitually turns up to work dishevelled, tired and often wearing the same clothes for three days previous. Jemima silently envies him of having what she so desperately wants - a baby - and thinks him ungrateful to moan about the sleepless nights and nappy changes when he should thank his lucky stars he has been blessed where she has not been.

Thankfully, the tirade of judgement does let up when the investigation begins, but then we find Jemima comparing herself to others whenever she comes across a pregnant woman. It is a little irritating at times, but for anyone who has known the emptiness of being unable to conceive, the struggle is indeed real.

Despite what I have already outlined, it isn't long before what started out as the discovery of one body has turned into several bodies being unearthed in shallow graves on the grounds of Llys Faen Hall, the ancestral home of the Tremaine family, located on the outskirts of Cardiff. David and Helen Tremaine were on their morning constitutional of the grounds when their staffy Corbett sniffed out a hand poking from beneath the dirt in the woodlands, promptly calling the police on their return to the house.

What ensues is an investigation that isn't all it seems. The Tremaines are a strange couple, and their staff are also somewhat questionable, and it's clear from the outset that they're not being completely honest with the police. But what is it that they are hiding? Do they know who the bodies are? Maybe they know who the killer is and are protecting them? Or is it something more sinister? Whatever it is, something strange is afoot in that household and Jemima is determined to get to the bottom of it.

The murders are revealed to be ritualistic in nature and incredibly sadistic. And it isn't long before Jemima connects the victims to a women's refuge that Helen Tremaine had set up some years before. Helen identifies some photographs of missing women as those to have been at the refuge as dental records systematically confirm their identities. So what has the refuge got to do with these murders? These women lived in fear of their partners finding them, so they would only go with those they trusted. Did that mean Helen was somehow involved or knew more than she was letting on?

While the bodies are being retrieved, Jemima and DS Broadbent start to look into the backgrounds of the Tremaines and their staff. They claim to have no family, except Helen's brother, with whom they have had no contact for fifteen years after he shamed the family after being convicted of the brutal rape of several women. Was he, Bernard Shackleton, somehow responsible for these murders which involved a brutal and sadistic form of simulated rape?

In the midst of what she sees as the biggest case of her career, Jemima is left with feelings of inadequacy in both her professional and personal lives. She is a DI and a woman in a man's world, who has to work twice as hard to gain the recognition and respect of her peers, but she is also a wife and woman who yearns to be a mother. Her desire borders on obsession at times as it is all she can think of. And yet, when disappointment looms once again...how does she deal with it? She doesn't talk it over with husband Nick and work it out together or even see a specialist. No, she locks herself in the bathroom, takes out the razor blade she has hidden in a tampon box and cuts herself. Just one small shallow cut, but enough to feel the pain. She even leaves in the middle of an interview to cut herself in an effort to maintain control of her investigation.

Then at the end she has some sort of epiphany and begins to question the stability of her marriage. She doesn't talk to her husband, and yet she yells at him when she comes home to find he hasn't cooked for her or cleaned the kitchen. In (not only) my opinion, it takes two to make a marriage but it also takes two to break a marriage. Laying it at her husband's feet that he hasn't noticed her pain (when she doesn't talk about it, 'cause let's face it, men don't really notice things unless they are naked and in front of them) or saying he doesn't understand her, just doesn't cut it with me.

I didn't really like Jemima very much - she is incredibly self-obsessed in my view - but I would be interested to see more of her and DS Broadbent in the future. I'd like to see how things progress for her both personally and professionally, particularly with the addition to their team at the very end, opening the floor for further investigations in the series.

REVENGE is a hard book to categorise as it is a police procedural but it is also very dark, very gruesome and very twisted. It reads more like something from the gritty streets of Glasgow than the sleepy Welsh locale in which it's set.

Filled with more secrets, more lies and more twists than you could imagine, REVENGE is not for the faint-hearted. And despite it's slow start, this well-plotted tale is a riveting and compelling crime novel of disturbing proportions.

I would like to thank #GaynorTorrance, #NetGalley and #SapereBooks for an ARC of #Revenge in exchange for an honest review.