Rating 4/5
Review:
A decent, if formulaic thriller
I thought this was a competently written and quite enjoyable thriller. It has its faults but kept me reading and I enjoyed it overall.
Crossbones Yard introduces a new protagonist, Alison Quentin - a young, strong and independent clinical psychologist, with a difficult psychological history of her own and a brother who suffers from mental illness and drug addiction. She reluctantly agrees to assist the police in an investigation of a serial killer who is copying the modus operandi of a convicted couple who strongly resemble Fred and Rosemary West. It's familiar stuff but there are exciting moments and sufficient interest to keep me reading.
I did have my reservations about the book, mainly due to its clichés and stereotypes. The men are almost universally either obnoxious or complete pillocks or both. (Although in fairness I found the female characters generally well drawn and I found both Alice's mother and her friend Lola very believable.) Alice is attracted to a brooding and offensive but sexy and darkly handsome officer on the case. Needless to say she is herself threatened by the serial killer (yes, another serial killer) who locks women into tiny spaces before finally killing them. I wouldn't dream of giving away plot details, but after we had been reminded of this again and again along with the sixth or seventh clunky reference to Alice's claustrophobia I began muttering "OK, OK I *get* it," under my breath rather a lot. There were several important things which a moron in a hurry would have spotted but which an intelligent psychologist and several experienced police officers contrived not to notice. And so on.
However, Rhodes's writing carried me along easily enough and in the end I found myself just nodding to the clichés as they went by, suspending disbelief and rather enjoying it. It's not an enduring classic of the genre but it is entertaining enough and I can recommend it as an enjoyable read.
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