Simon Booker

Despite my dislike of joining a series anywhere but at the start, I seem to be picking up a lot of books at this second book stage. What I will say about Kill Me Twice, is that if you hadn't told me it was book 2 in the series, I really wouldn't have known...until I looked up what else the author had written to add it to my wish list. So in my humble opinion, Kill Me Twice can definitely be read as a standalone novel and a VERY enjoyable one at that.

It gives me chills just writing about the start of the book, as it has every ingredient you need for a gripping thriller. Morgan feels somebody watching her and her daughter, Lissa, as they take a walk along the coast. As Morgan lies reeling from a blow to the back of her head, she hears the 'clink-rasp' of a lighter and smells the burning of human hair. Morgan found herself completely powerless to defend her daughter from this vicious attack.

Morgan wrote a book about miscarriages of justice, so she manages to find something to take her mind off this mindless attack: the case of Anjelica Fry. Anjelica was convicted of killing her boyfriend, Karl Savage, in an arson attack. So why does Morgan think she is innocent? Some things don't add up and then when Morgan sees Karl watching her house, she knows for sure that Anjelica has been wrongly imprisoned. What she doesn't know is how Karl managed to fake his own death and why he wanted Anjelica to be sent down for it.

What follows is a story so fast-paced and gripping, that makes Kill Me Twice a thriller of the highest calibre. There are so many little twists and surprises as we delve into Karl's life and the lives of the women he has loved and destroyed - he's Savage by name and savage by nature. Morgan is a superb character - she is like a dog with a bone once she gets something into her head. Her relationship with her daughter, Lissa, was interesting too as they don't seem that close at the start but Morgan is clearly there for Lissa when the chips are down.

One slight criticism I have, and it doesn't take anything at all away from the 5 stars I have awarded this book, is the overuse of the phrase 'blowing out his/her cheeks'. It just seemed to appear a lot and once I noticed it, it seemed to pop up a lot more!

Kill Me Twice really is a spectacular book, one that has me immediately adding the first book, Without Trace, to my cart as opposed to just my wishlist, and keeping a VERY keen eye out for book number 3. There are some vivid and slightly uncomfortable scenes as Karl shows his true colours, but I couldn't have torn my eyes away from the page if my life depended on it. A superb book, one that is very hard to put down and had me gripped from start to finish. I wholeheartily recommend this one!

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.… (lisätietoja)

How do you set about proving the impossible? Simon Booker shows us through his determined heroine, investigative journalist Morgan Vine, in this pacy contemporary crime novel.
Morgan’s latest investigation into a miscarriage of justice quickly becomes personal when her stroppy 20 year old daughter is attacked by a man supposed to be dead.
Kill Me Twice is tightly plotted and features a range of realistically flawed characters, male and female, sympathetically portraying the difficulties of single motherhood. It also creates a convincing picture of a criminal justice system that is fallible and under pressure, from an outsider’s point of view. With an unexpected final twist, this book certainly lived up to its striking cover.… (lisätietoja)

Morgan has spent years campaigning to free her best friend Danny from prison. He was accused of murdering his stepdaughter and being involved in the disappearance of her mother. Now she has succeeded and Danny is free, but is he as innocent as she believes? and what has happened to her daughter Lissa?
This is a fantastic psychological thriller made even better by the use of Dungeness as a location. Love it or hate it Dungeness is a striking landscape and reflects beautifully the turmoil of the characters. Yes you may have to suspend disbelief slightly at times and no Lissa is not the most likeable character but who cares. It's a cracking read where nobody is as guilty or innocent as you may believe. Bring on the next one.… (lisätietoja)

'Nine days before her daughter disappeared, Morgan Vine paid her twenty-third visit to HMP Dungness.'

Now tell me that opening hasn't got you hooked. Why is Morgan there? Why does her daughter disappear? How are the two connected? (Since the construction of that sentence tells you they are.) Of course, if you're reading the opening sentence of screenwriter Simon Booker's debut novel 'Without Trace', then you've likely already read the blurb, so you probably know that Morgan is visiting her childhood sweetheart, Danny. Still. There's plenty to uncover yet.

-- What's it about? --

Once upon a time, Morgan Vine dreamed of being an investigative journalist, but in that classic female failure, she got knocked up instead and now writes meaningless columns about celebrity fridges, when she's not cleaning local houses. Of course, she might have pulled herself together sooner if it weren't for her obsession with childhood hero Danny Kilcannon - or Killer-Cannon, as the press have dubbed him since he was accused of murdering his teenaged step-daughter with a claw-hammer. Morgan's stalwart belief in his innocent has made her the front-running campaigner for his retrial and release, but within days of his release, her wayward teenage daughter, Lissa, disappears and doubts start creeping in.

Did Killer-Cannon Kilcannon murder his step-daughter and his wife? Is this just another teenage strop (Lissa has form) or did Morgan release a killer? Surrounded by people who seem keen to help, but who are all slightly off-beat - the sexually-minded prison officer, the police officer struggling to manage her own wayward daughter, the equally obsessive journalist from a local tabloid - who can Morgan trust? The final answer is chilling.

-- What's it like? --

Fast-paced. Convincing. Brilliantly drawn together. Short chapters encourage you to race from twist to turn, wondering what Morgan can possibly uncover next. For a while it isn't clear how all the plot threads will connect, so I didn't feel particularly invested in the developing story of Chelsea Farmiloe's antics, or the possibly dead, possibly missing wife, but this is a masterpiece of plotting and everything becomes relevant at the end. I'm a sucker for stories that come together like this and really enjoyed the ending.

And yet...is the plot believable? Hmm. The characters are utterly convincing; from Morgan's recognition of her own hypocrisy to Danny's account of how prison changes you to Lissa's teen-speak and simplistic attitudes, I found them incredibly real. But the complexities of the actual plot? Booker is a screenwriter and this is made for the screen (especially that ending): as a film, I probably wouldn't even comment on it, but as a book it felt rather dramatic. Perhaps that's the key distinction; on reflection 'Without Trace' is a very realistic whirlwind of drama.

Morgan is a fascinating character. Obsessive to the point of seeming almost unhinged initially, her credentials as an investigator move slowly into focus as the story develops and, as we learn about her background in carefully developed flashbacks, we can understand her compulsion to defend Danny when everyone - everyone else - is telling her he's dangerous. Danny is also intriguing. Clearly, he's not an innocent, but is he really capable of murdering his best friend's daughter?

-- Miscarriages of justice --

Booker appears to be fascinated by miscarriages of justice. Within the first couple of chapters of 'Without Trace' I realised he was echoing details from the murder and trial of Billie-Jo Jenkins, murdered school-girl, and a quick visit to his website reveals he penned an earlier psychological thriller called 'The Stepfather' (2005) in which a man's daughter disappears and, when he tries to move on with his life, his stepdaughter disappers too. Sound familiar?

Apparently his interest in miscarriages of justice was sparked when his ex-wife married a man, Bruce Lisker, who spent 26 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. I think these are such fascinating cases because we find it impossible to know for absolute certain when the miscarriage of justice occurred: when an innocent man was jailed or when a guilty man was released. This is what makes it such a ripe subject for psychological thrillers: did they do it? Did they really?

-- Literary leanings --

This is a lovely book for bibliophiles: Morgan runs a prison reading group (as Booker himself has done) and throughout the novel there are discussions about the novels the convicts are reading. (Of course, Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is featured.) These discussions are short and usually focused on revealing more about the inmates feelings towards Morgan - and each other - than about the books themselves, but still. Books within books. Lovely stuff. And if you consider the choices carefully they might guide your developing insights into the characters.

-- Final thoughts --

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, though 'enjoyed' feels like a slightly odd word to apply to a story with such dark roots. I love Morgan's investigative style, which generally involves asking lots of questions and thinking about things, rather than a more 'forensic' or 'gung-ho' approach (she's not bullying information out of anyone or tricking her way into armed buildings).

The uncertainty is compelling: throughout the book, the ground constantly shifts. Do we trust Danny? No, he's clearly dodgy - or is he just damaged by his time in prison? Oh no, he's definitely dodgy. But, so's everyone else. So is he a killer? And even if he was, does he have know more about Lissa than he's saying? I think there's a key point where you reach a decision about him, but then something happened that completely changed my mind - and then something else happened and I was stunned into a new opinion again. Throughout we are brilliantly manipulated, like we might be in a high-stakes poker game.

Many thanks to the publishers for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (lisätietoja)