While there are shades of The Silence of the Lambs in Nine Elms, due to a connection between an imprisoned monster and an investigator, Robert Bryndza has created wholly original characters and a story that is the very definition of a ‘page-turner’ and ‘unputdownable’!
From the beginning, you are immediately aware that you are in the hands of a master storyteller. The book opens with what happened 15 years before the main part of the story, and though we are being dropped into the end of an old investigation, Bryndza provides exactly the amount of information we need to orient ourselves, know who is who and what’s going on, and feel “caught up” even though we are literally walking into the resolution of a case. He doesn’t bog the story down with too much background, but also doesn’t skimp on the details. It is just right, and it is immediately intense and exciting, something that stays consistent throughout the entire novel.
Kate Marshall is the investigator we are following, and while she caught a notorious serial killer 15 years before, it ended up destroying her career. She now is teaching criminology courses at a small college when it appears that there is now a copycat killer emulating the serial killer Kate apprehended. Now deciding to work in private investigations at the behest of a grieving family, Kate enlists her research assistant, Tristan, and they set out to catch this new killer.
Kate and Tristan make a great team, and Bryndza has done an excellent job making them very real people with strengths and weaknesses. They aren’t perfect people, but they are real and they are likeable. Kate is an alcoholic, which is a common trope for a “disgraced detective” but it is so seldom that we see them in their sober years, maintaining a relationship with their sponsor, and attending AA. Other characters throughout the novel (even those who are not at all likeable) come across as real, three-dimensional people as well.
One of my favourite aspects of Bryndza’s storytelling is how he doesn’t let the reader in on the “bad guy’s” ultimate plan. We know he has one, but he doesn’t let us in on it. So, as twists and turns start happening, we don’t know if that is part of the plan or not. (Did this person who did something unexpected just ruin the plan? Or were they in on it all along? Was that supposed to happen?) We don’t know who is part of the plan, or if someone is foiling the plan, and that helps maintain the edge-of-your-seat excitement.
I definitely want more Kate Marshall stories!
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Synopsis | Goodreads
From the breakthrough international bestselling author of The Girl in the Ice, a breathtaking, page-turning novel about a disgraced female detective’s fight for redemption. And survival…
Kate Marshall was a promising young police detective when she caught the notorious Nine Elms serial killer. But her greatest victory suddenly turned into a nightmare. Traumatized, betrayed, and publicly vilified for the shocking circumstances surrounding the cannibal murder case, Kate could only watch as her career ended in scandal.
Fifteen years after these catastrophic events, Kate is still haunted by the unquiet ghosts of her troubled past. Now a lecturer at a small coastal English University, she finally has a chance to face them. A copycat killer has taken up the Nine Elms mantle, continuing the ghastly work of his idol.
Enlisting her brilliant research assistant, Tristan Harper, Kate draws on her prodigious and long-neglected skills as an investigator to catch a new monster. Success promises redemption, but there’s much more on the line: Kate was the original killer’s intended fifth victim…and his successor means to finish the job.
