A Dark so Deadly by Stuart MacBride

This read is messy, but in a good way. It is at the very least dysfunctional and unpredictable. Fair warning, an extremely high amount of babies, of the jelly variety, lose their little lives during this murderous tale.

MacBride has his characters throwing around banter like an unruly crowd throwing food during an ancient Greek theatre performance. A lot of tit for tat and sometimes they are as vicious to each other, as a honey badger on a rampage.

Poor Callum, he really isn't having a very good time of it. His career is nearly over, his life is crumbling like a dunked biscuit and his new friend on speed dial is a 7 year old girl, who thinks she is more gangsta than Al Capone.

It takes the gang a while to figure out that they are dealing with a particularly vicious and unbalanced serial killer. A ruthless and very intelligent one.

I have to admit, the author managed to get one over on me. There was the occasional niggle, which I won't delve into because it would give away the game. Overall I was 'colour me surprised' at the end.

I think the author actually excels at having no normal or semi-normal characters, they are all misfits in their own right, and it works. In their own way the whole bunch of them bounce off each other and they care what happens, despite loud protestations to the contrary.

MacBride is definitely an author I will be revisiting. I enjoyed his dark humour and droll wit. I'm fairly certain the whole banter and witty repertoire was a way to distract me from the fact the author was hiding the killer right in front of me. Yeh, that's my theory and I'm sticking with it. (*grin*)

Buy A Dark so Deadly at Amazon UK or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.