Today it is my turn on the BlogTour Retriever of Souls by Lorraine Mace. It's a fast-paced violent crime thriller with a main character who brings his work home with him, and not in a good way.
When not working on her D.I. Sterling Series, Lorraine Mace is engaged in many writing-related activities. She is a columnist for both Writing Magazine and Writers' Forum and is head judge for Writers’ Forum monthly fiction competitions. A tutor for Writers Bureau, she also runs her own private critique and author mentoring service. She is co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam, of The Writer;s ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Other books include children’s novel Vlad the Inhaler - Hero in the Making, and Notes From the Margin, a compilation of her Writing Magazine humour column.
Follow @lomace on Twitter, on Facebook, on Goodreads, on Amazon,
Visit lorrainemace.com or thewritersabcchecklist.blogspot.com
Buy Retriever of Souls
About the book
Brought up believing that sex is the devil's work, a killer only finds release once he has saved his victim's souls. Abiding by his vision, he marks them as his. A gift to guide his chosen ones on the rightful path to redemption.
Detective Inspector Paolo Sterling is out to stop him, but Paolo has problems of his own. Hunting down the killer as the death toll rises, the lines soon blur between Paolo's personal and professional lives.
This is quite graphic at times, especially when it comes to the sexually explicit nature of the crimes. To be fair the first chapter will give you a good idea of what to expect going forward. It's the first in the DI Sterling series, and given by the hits Sterling takes in this book, he has quite a few traumatic events to overcome, the next book should be interesting.
The killer in this story believes he is saving the souls of the women he tortures and kills. I actually disagree with this motive fuelled by religion. Give me a minute with him, so we can discuss just how much he enjoys the violence, the humiliation and the sexual aspect of his crimes. Anyone who has the foresight to plan certain parts of the crime, which suggest or misdirect the intention, they are not killing in a religious frenzy. Sorry, just calling the killer out.
It is up to Sterling and his team to find the man intent on saving souls, whilst getting he his deviant jollies at the same time. Unfortunately the arrow of guilt points in a few directions and Sterling takes his eye off the ball, which leads to a tragic mistake.
The male characters in the book tend to follow stereotypical misogynistic tropes, perhaps slightly unusual given the gender of the author, but perhaps Mace is trying to make a point by doing so. There are many men who live, love and flourish whilst living as one of these tropes. This is the reality for a lot of women in their interactions with men.
Let me just point out that I do not believe all men are driven by the need to dominate women or think it is their natural born privilege to take what they want from women. Ugga Ugga, cave man mentality. No, not all men are raised that way, but a fairly large group of them need to take a long hard look at their behaviour.
It's a fast-paced violent crime thriller with a main character who brings his work home with him, and not in a good way.
Buy Retriever of Souls (DI Sterling #1) at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Accent Press Ltd; pub date 13 Dec. 2018. Buy at Amazon com.
No comments:
Post a Comment