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Hi!
Today I bring you the debut crime novel by author & London Criminal Defence Lawyer Nadine Matheson.
There's a serial killer on the loose…
When body parts start washing up along the banks of the river Thames, the Serial Crimes Unit is called to investigate, and it quickly becomes apparent to DI Henley that there isn't just one victim. There are two.
The murders are hauntingly familiar to Henley. The modus operandi matches that of Peter Olivier, the notorious Jigsaw Killer. But Olivier is already behind bars, and Henley was the one who put him there.
Olivier is the last person Henley wants to see but she needs his help. He might be their best chance to stop the copycat before more body parts start turning up. But when Olivier learns of the new murders, helping out Henley and the SCU is the last thing on his mind.
All bets are off and the race is on to catch the killer before the body count rises. But who will get there first – Henley or the Jigsaw Killer?
As I've mentioned, this is a debut novel - but you'd never know it. The author describes this as "a macabre love letter to South East London" and it really does come across that way. London itself is a main character in this novel. The smells, the sounds, the eclectic mix of people that make up the city - they all pour off the pages. The author does such a brilliant job with the main characters that I was sure there had been a mistake and that this was at least the second book in a series - but no, it's number one. We get backstory, we get previous case history, we get relationship history, we get a complete picture of who DI Anjelica Henley is and what she has been through. That's impressive in itself but when it's also combined with a world of side characters with their own history and stories, that sets this apart from other crime novels.
The villain, Olivier, is truly disgusting. I've read a lot of crime and thriller novels and rarely does a character make me sick to my stomach. This one most definitely did. It's pretty gruesome (I almost wrote "pretty gruesome in parts" but I feel like that takes puns to another level altogether), so do bear that in mind, but for me it was worth it. It has been a very long time since I put a book down and immediately wanted to read the next one in the series (it has been confirmed!! Yay!!).
I highly recommend this if you like police procedurals or crime novels but ache for a good female lead. DI Anjelica Henley has shot (boom) right to the top of my favourite fictional investigators. I felt like I got to know her so well, she felt so real. This is, of course, in part down to the fact that this is an #ownvoices novel. The author was born and bred in London and works in the UK Judicial system. The book also highlights the myriad of BS that black women & women of colour are expected to endure (in both professional & non-professional instances), from the microaggressions and misogyny to the differences between resources available to solve (or even the amount of attention given to) missing persons cases when a white woman goes missing versus when a black woman or woman of colour goes missing.
I really enjoyed this. It was a solid crime novel and I hope the first of many for this author and for DI Anjelica Henley. I would love to see it as a TV adaptation too.
Thank you to Lia & Harper Collins for granting me access to a digital copy via NetGalley and for this opportunity to highlight the book on the Blog Tour.
The Jigsaw Man is available now in Ireland & the UK, and from March 16th in the U.S.
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