mick dubois
Fergus Arris is a very sick man, he’s dying and doesn’t want to do that alone. So, he collects a family for himself; a wife, a daughter and even a brother. To achieve this he first stalks and then kidnaps his chosen victims. When Elspeth Dunwood, daughter of a well-connected family disappears on the streets of Edinburgh, DI Baarda a kidnap specialist from the Met teams up with American forensic psychologist Connie Woolwinne to find her. When more people are abducted in the following weeks, they assume that they must be connected as it’s not habitual for people to be kidnapped in Scotland’s capital. When Connie finally delivers a fitting profile, those in charge just don’t buy it. Time runs out very fast for the victims, can they be saved in time? My main criticism is about the premise itself. I just don’t find it logical that the Scottish police, who's completely independent of the English one, as far as I know, would immediately turn to London and ask for a kidnap expert when they’re not even certain what has happened to the woman. At that moment they can still assume that she disappeared on purpose. On top of that, asking an American profiler at that stage is not very realistic. The quips about the differences between US and UK differences are a bit lame. I think that there would be equally big differences and jokes about Scottish versus English accents and idioms. I certainly didn’t connect to the American psychologist at first. She was unnecessarily rude and opinionated, even condescending at times when a normal and educated person would be polite instead of sarcastic. As I can be sarcastic at times, I still know when not to as well. Someone who’s that good in reading people’s expressions would not react like that. Some of her actions are at least questionable (connecting with the corpse of a dead woman?). She is an achromat and can’t see colours apart from black and white and shades thereof and feels as if she lives in a different world than the rest of us. Something that makes her connect with the abductor more easily. DI Baarda is only present as a police detective and we learn but little about his private life or background story. My favourite character is Meggie though. She’s exceptionable clever for a 12-year-old and very courageous. Some will condemn Elspeth for complying with the abductor but I don’t think she could do anything else. She was alone with the creep for weeks before he took Meggie and you see how she changes once she has company. It’s nice to see the relationship develop between those two. If you can overcome the premise, especially the second half of the story is suspenseful and compelling. It takes a long time though before all the elements come together and the stories take off. In the first half of the book, the focus is mainly on Fergus and his delusions or how he collects ‘his family’. The other storyline is about the investigation into the disappearances. In the second half, there’s more action on all levels (the captives and the hunt for Fergus). This is a cross-over between a psychological thriller and a police procedural. And it does work well that way. I know that this story is meant as standalone but it could easily work well as first in a series. I received a free ARC from Netgalley and Avon Books UK; this is my honest, unbiased review of it.
