Book Details
|
The Book In a grimy flat in the city of Cork, a burly man lies dead on a bloodstained mattress. His face is unrecognisable: seven gunshots have shattered cartilage and bone. Yet DS Katie Maguire, of the Irish Garda, knows exactly who he is. Amir Xaaji Maxamed, a Somali pimp she has unsuccessfully been trying to convict for years.
Katie knows it's her job to catch the killer. But Maxamed was an evil man who trafficked young girls into Ireland to be sold for sex, and now that he's dead, the city is a safer place. When a second pimp is killed, Katie must decide. Are these vigilante murders justified? And how can she stop them spiraling out of control?
The Author
Graham Masterton was born in Edinburgh in 1946. His grandfather was Thomas Thorne Baker, the eminent scientist who invented DayGlo and was the first man to transmit news photographs by wireless. After training as a newspaper reporter, Graham went on to edit the new British menis magazine Mayfair, where he encouraged William Burroughs to develop a series of scientific and philosophical articles which eventually became Burroughsi novel The Wild Boys. At the age of 24, Graham was appointed executive editor of both Penthouse and Penthouse Forum magazines. At this time he started to write a bestselling series of sex 'how-to' books including How To Drive Your Man Wild In Bed which has sold over 3 million copies worldwide. His latest, Wild Sex For New Lovers is published by Penguin Putnam in January, 2001. He is a regular contributor to Cosmopolitan, Menis Health, Woman, Womanis Own and other mass-market self-improvement magazines.
Graham Masterton's debut as a horror author began with The Manitou in 1976, a chilling tale of a Native American medicine man reborn in the present day to exact his revenge on the white man. It became an instant bestseller and was filmed with Tony Curtis, Susan Strasberg, Burgess Meredith, Michael Ansara, Stella Stevens and Ann Sothern.
Altogether Graham has written more than a hundred novels ranging from thrillers (The Sweetman Curve, Ikon) to disaster novels (Plague, Famine) to historical sagas (Rich and Maiden Voyage - both appeared in the New York Times bestseller list). He has published four collections of short stories, Fortnight of Fear, Flights of Fear, Faces of Fear and Feelings of Fear.
He has also written horror novels for children (House of Bones, Hair-Raiser) and has just finished the fifth volume in a very popular series for young adults, Rook, based on the adventures of an idiosyncratic remedial English teacher in a Los Angeles community college who has the facility to see ghosts.
Since then Graham has published more than 35 horror novels, including Charnel House, which was awarded a Special Edgar by Mystery Writers of America; Mirror, which was awarded a Silver Medal by West Coast Review of Books; and Family Portrait, an update of Oscar Wildeis tale, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was the only non-French winner of the prestigious Prix Julia Verlanger in France.
He and his wife Wiescka live in a Gothic Victorian mansion high above the River Lee in Cork, Ireland.
http://www.grahammasterton.co.uk/
My Thoughts
Graham Masterton is a master at crime and horror. This is the first book I have read of his that is a crime novel, I have read a few of his other works and really enjoyed them. I was drawn to the book because not only is it a crime novel that I love, but it takes place in Ireland, which I am obsessed with.
A man is found dead with his face horribly mutilated and missing his hands. DS Katie Maguire, of the Irish Garda is tasked with solving this crime. Identifying the man proves difficult but once she finds that the dead man was a pimp who exploited women and young girls in the sex slave market, she is more determined to find the traffickers. More men are getting killed by the Avenging Angel, as she calls herself. We are not supposed to cheer for the serial killer in novels, but after I found out why this young woman was killing pimps, I was actually hoping that she would get away with it. Revenge is a kind of wild justice they say but there are always consequences. This is also a sad story of the sex trade, how these girls and women are lied to and then made to believe that what they are doing is the only way for them to live.
This story is pretty graphic so if vivid descriptions are bothersome to you, well this may not be the type of story for you. I however loved every page of the book. This is a stand alone novel, but the third in the series. Great writing and believable characters make for a book that you don't want to miss.
I received a copy for review and was not monetarily compensated for my review.
No comments:
Post a Comment