I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A gripping serial killer thriller with a twist – from No. 1 bestseller Stuart MacBride

This time the serial killer picked the wrong family…
‘MacBride is a damned fine writer’ Peter James

They call him Sawbones: a serial killer touring America kidnapping young women.

The FBI’s investigating – but getting nowhere.

The latest victim is Laura Jones. Sixteen years old. Pretty. Blonde. And the daughter of one of New York’s most notorious gangsters. Laura’s Dad doesn’t care about the law. What he wants is revenge. And he knows just the guys to get it.

This time, Sawbones picked on the wrong family…

Sawbones was a Stuart MacBride first for me and I can gladly say it will not be the last. With brutal imagery and a raw and fantastical landscape, I flew through the pages of this short novella.  Who instantly pops into your mind when you think of serial killers? Jack the Ripper, Jeffrey Dahmer, Harold Shipman, and Ted Bundy immediately come to mind. Well, MacBride’s Sawbones could give them all a run for their money. A man that kidnaps and tortures young girls to death by the hacking of their limbs for what seems like fun. What happens though when a serial killer takes the wrong girl and ignites the wrath of a notorious family?

I enjoyed Sawbones immensely. A story that could be easily lengthened and adapted as a Netflix original series. A deadly serial killer. A notorious family. A deadly vendetta.  The story offers no protection. It strips back the layers of safety and put me in the here and now. Like all good serial killer stories, it makes you ask the difficult questions, why do human beings feel the need to hurt others? How can the psyche break that much that they can take pleasure in seeing young girls be mutilated and then killed? It’s the billion-dollar question that no one seems to be able to answer.

Told from the perspective of the driver hunting Sawbones we get plenty of dark humour and colourful language. There are plenty of personality clashes between the driver and the gang accompanying him and it makes for an interesting journey. They are against the clock to get their boss’s daughter back home safe, or their lives won’t be worth living either. The journey is fraught with cops, car trouble, and near misses. With a simple yet powerful prose the reader get’s a feel for the danger and boy does it pack a punch.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stuart MacBride is the Sunday Times No.1 bestselling author of the Logan McRae and Ash Henderson novels. He’s also published standalones, novellas, and short stories, as well as a slightly twisted children’s picture book for slightly twisted children. Stuart lives in the northeast of Scotland with his wife Fiona, cats Gherkin, Onion and Beetroot, some hens, some horses, and an impressive collection of assorted weeds.

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