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A review by _onemorechapter_
Perfect Prey by Helen Sarah Fields
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
๐ป.๐พ: Gruesome, Gory, Torture and Violence
๐ญThis follow-up novel is just as good, if not a tiny bit better than the first one!!
This is the second, powerful book in the DI Callanach Edinburgh crime series. In the middle of a music festival, someone brushes by a man and in an instant the man is gutted. Across Edinburgh so begins a series of bloody and brutal murders. On one hand, some of the murders are inventive and sadistic, carried out with macabre finesse and on the other hand murders are carried out that are violent, messy and primal. It's up to Callanach and Turner to solve these murders before anyone else dies.
Meanwhile, an old flame of Turner's appears in Edinburgh, DCI Edgar(total ass) - the star of the cybercrime force. Turner and he rekindle their romance much to Callanach's bemusement. Edgar is there to take down hacker wunderkind, Ben Paulson, but Ben is fast becoming one of Callanach's loyal, inner circle, putting Callanach on a crash course with Edgar.
You can say a lot is happening in this book!!
This book is a good mix of the professional and the personal side of several of its main characters. There are disagreements and disagreeable people both in the department and outside. What I loved about this book is the way it builds its characters and the dynamic between them without sacrificing the insane plot and mystery of the investigation. The book has a brilliant balance between character development and plot progress and it makes for a well-written mystery full of intrigue, twists and revelations.
There is some great character development of Callanach and Ava in a brilliantly immersive way. Fast-paced action as well as the introduction of a couple of other characters (Ben and Lance) who I hope to meet again in the series. The roots of this book start in the crimes, but its branches contain so many interesting side stories. Turner's mother, Luc's new neighbor, DCI Joe Edgar, DC Salter's pregnancy, and many more make this feel realistic and give it some basic humanity. Even Sergeant Lively shows some compassion! Then thereโs Superintendent Overbeck, the boss from hell.
Descriptively speaking this is absolute genius โ you get so involved all the way through you go through a gamut of emotions from subtle smile to outrage to terror and back again. One character will CERTAINLY get your goat, you know you are loving a book when you end up shouting at the people in it like they can hear you and will modify their behaviour accordingly..
The book is split into two parts, and the first half of the novel is a straightforward narrative from the police perspective. It sets the scene, introduces the characters and gives a good overall picture of the problems facing the investigation and the politics involved. The first part of the book leaves you in the unknown, it leaves you second-guessing throughout and just when you think you know who the bad guy is, you find you are wrong. The second part of the book is where we start to get our answers. In the second part of the book, weโre given perspectives from the criminals and several different points of view. I really like this approach and think it works extremely well.
Moreover, it wasnโt a clear-cut โthis is who it isโ throughout the second part of the book, many layers were unravelled and we got to watch as each element played into the overall complex story that had been building.
Overall Perfect Prey is a perfect second novel to follow up the intensity of the first, upping the ante, keeping you in the characters' lives. This is, without a doubt, a series Iโm going to be following in the future. Great things are promised, and I cannot wait to see how everything plays out.
๐.๐ A lot of information on Darknet! I am kind of fascinated by the darknet world!!
๐ธ๐ด๐ ๐น๐๐๐๐๐: โญโญโญโญ
๐ธ๐ฎ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐น๐๐๐๐๐: 4.32 (10146) ๐ธ๐ฎ๐๐๐๐: Crime Fiction, Thriller and Police Procedural
๐ธ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐: D.I. Callanach (Book 2)
๐ธ๐น๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐: Yes, Yes and Yes!
Harrowing, exciting, well-plotted, well-crafted, and well-made characters!
If you like your crime dark and dastardly with a hint of horror and a strong degree of unpredictability then Perfect Prey is for you.
๐ธ ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ธ๐๐๐๐๐:
"He wouldnโt give up. The right woman was worth a million rejections."
"Youโre a force to be reckoned with, Ava Turner. You took my breath away that day, as you have done ever since. I always wanted a gentler life for you, but I was wrong, you were made of sterner stuff. Iโm proud of you. Donโt cry for me, my love. Life goes on."
"love was the most brutal and destructive of emotions, Callanach was all too aware of that. And the loss of it, the easy slipping away, was a torture whatever the circumstances."
"โYouโre more important than my career."
"โI should buy you dinner for slapping me,โ Callanach said. โIt was a fraction of what I deserved. A less restrained woman would have followed it up with a knee."
๐ญThis follow-up novel is just as good, if not a tiny bit better than the first one!!
This is the second, powerful book in the DI Callanach Edinburgh crime series. In the middle of a music festival, someone brushes by a man and in an instant the man is gutted. Across Edinburgh so begins a series of bloody and brutal murders. On one hand, some of the murders are inventive and sadistic, carried out with macabre finesse and on the other hand murders are carried out that are violent, messy and primal. It's up to Callanach and Turner to solve these murders before anyone else dies.
Meanwhile, an old flame of Turner's appears in Edinburgh, DCI Edgar(total ass) - the star of the cybercrime force. Turner and he rekindle their romance much to Callanach's bemusement. Edgar is there to take down hacker wunderkind, Ben Paulson, but Ben is fast becoming one of Callanach's loyal, inner circle, putting Callanach on a crash course with Edgar.
You can say a lot is happening in this book!!
This book is a good mix of the professional and the personal side of several of its main characters. There are disagreements and disagreeable people both in the department and outside. What I loved about this book is the way it builds its characters and the dynamic between them without sacrificing the insane plot and mystery of the investigation. The book has a brilliant balance between character development and plot progress and it makes for a well-written mystery full of intrigue, twists and revelations.
There is some great character development of Callanach and Ava in a brilliantly immersive way. Fast-paced action as well as the introduction of a couple of other characters (Ben and Lance) who I hope to meet again in the series. The roots of this book start in the crimes, but its branches contain so many interesting side stories. Turner's mother, Luc's new neighbor, DCI Joe Edgar, DC Salter's pregnancy, and many more make this feel realistic and give it some basic humanity. Even Sergeant Lively shows some compassion! Then thereโs Superintendent Overbeck, the boss from hell.
Descriptively speaking this is absolute genius โ you get so involved all the way through you go through a gamut of emotions from subtle smile to outrage to terror and back again. One character will CERTAINLY get your goat, you know you are loving a book when you end up shouting at the people in it like they can hear you and will modify their behaviour accordingly..
The book is split into two parts, and the first half of the novel is a straightforward narrative from the police perspective. It sets the scene, introduces the characters and gives a good overall picture of the problems facing the investigation and the politics involved. The first part of the book leaves you in the unknown, it leaves you second-guessing throughout and just when you think you know who the bad guy is, you find you are wrong. The second part of the book is where we start to get our answers. In the second part of the book, weโre given perspectives from the criminals and several different points of view. I really like this approach and think it works extremely well.
Moreover, it wasnโt a clear-cut โthis is who it isโ throughout the second part of the book, many layers were unravelled and we got to watch as each element played into the overall complex story that had been building.
Overall Perfect Prey is a perfect second novel to follow up the intensity of the first, upping the ante, keeping you in the characters' lives. This is, without a doubt, a series Iโm going to be following in the future. Great things are promised, and I cannot wait to see how everything plays out.
๐.๐ A lot of information on Darknet! I am kind of fascinated by the darknet world!!
๐ธ๐ด๐ ๐น๐๐๐๐๐: โญโญโญโญ
๐ธ๐ฎ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐น๐๐๐๐๐: 4.32 (10146) ๐ธ๐ฎ๐๐๐๐: Crime Fiction, Thriller and Police Procedural
๐ธ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐: D.I. Callanach (Book 2)
๐ธ๐น๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐: Yes, Yes and Yes!
Harrowing, exciting, well-plotted, well-crafted, and well-made characters!
If you like your crime dark and dastardly with a hint of horror and a strong degree of unpredictability then Perfect Prey is for you.
๐ธ ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ธ๐๐๐๐๐:
"He wouldnโt give up. The right woman was worth a million rejections."
"Youโre a force to be reckoned with, Ava Turner. You took my breath away that day, as you have done ever since. I always wanted a gentler life for you, but I was wrong, you were made of sterner stuff. Iโm proud of you. Donโt cry for me, my love. Life goes on."
"love was the most brutal and destructive of emotions, Callanach was all too aware of that. And the loss of it, the easy slipping away, was a torture whatever the circumstances."
"โYouโre more important than my career."
"โI should buy you dinner for slapping me,โ Callanach said. โIt was a fraction of what I deserved. A less restrained woman would have followed it up with a knee."