I have often wondered, if faced with the difficult choices and moral dilemmas that our ancestors faced in times of war, the modern generation would be all for themselves or would they do the right thing , even at cost to themselves? When you read social media and newspaper’s , there’s very little evidence of self sacrifice of thinking of others first but the odd story does stand out. I suppose it really was the same in previous eras. We all like to think we’d do the right thing and are a good person but often we take the easy path through fear of selfishness. In this month’s third review we meet a killer who is testing the theory of making people choose between themselves and others. It’s ‘The Killing Choice’ by Will Shindler, published by Hodder & Stoughton (www.hodder.co.uk) on the 4th February.
This is the second book featuring Detective Inspector Alex Finn. The Library Door reviewed his previous outing in ‘The Burning Men’, a year ago. We were unfortunately late to the blog tour party for the release of this one (due to have been reviewed on the 6th Feb), as our copy was late arriving here in Ireland, due to lockdown, Covid 19, or Brexit. You can take your pick. Deliveries are proving very erratic here. Basically, if there’s a deadline, you’ll miss it but if there’s no rush, the item arrives very quickly.
Enough complaining, back to the book.. In this thriller the victims are faced with a choice by the killer. They must choose between themselves and a loved one or between two loved ones to save one person or themselves. The initial victims, Karl and his daughter Leah, are ambushed by a figure in a blank mask. At knife point, Karl is asked to make an impossible choice. Stay and they both die or leave Leah and accept the killer’s word that they will both live. If Karl leaves and Leah dies will he ever be able to live with himself? Subsequently other seemingly random people are offered similar choices as the killer leaves a trail of bodies across London. DI Finn and his detective constable, Mattie Paulson, must hunt for a killer with no face, no conscience and seemingly no motive , whilst battling problems of their own.
This is another dark crime thriller from Will Shindler, which keeps you turning the pages. It makes you think about what you’d do in the circumstances and also how social media and the mainstream media judge the motives and actions of strangers. The descriptions of the killings are quite graphic and gory, so not for the feint hearted, but the story is neatly resolved at the end, so you are at least able to sleep soundly again after finishing the book. We also get to know a little more about the lives and back stories of Alex, Mattie and another returning team member, Jackie Ojo. Alex is still struggling with grief after the death of his wife. Mattie is dealing with the increasing frailty of her parents and we are introduced to her brother. The characters are rounding out nicely.
This is English author Will Shindler’s (@willshindlerauthor) second book featuring his crime fighting duo of Detective Inspector Alex Finn and Detective Constable Mattie Paulsen, the other one being Burning Men (2020). Previously Shindler was a broadcast journalist with the BBC, before spending a decade as scriptwriter on such TV drama’s as Born & Bred, The Bill and Doctors. He currently combines reading the news on BBC Radio London and writing crime novels.
What I particularily like about this book and the previous book , is that Shindler has given us a killer with a motive and specific victims. I find too many authors go down the route of putting one of their central characters in the killers sights, and the books become all about the main character and sometimes about a vendetta against them , and happens in every subsequent book. Shindler has a well-reasoned motive and in these two books , a specific reason for choosing the victim and the mode of killing. Its all very satisfying when its reasoned out at the end of the book.
So what would I chose? I guess I wouldn’t know unless it happened. So maybe I shouldn’t support those threads, sites and newsfeeds which are so quick to point a finger. What I do know is that you should order or download a copy of the Killing Choice as soon as possible. That’s a no brainer at least!
Reviewed by : Georgina Murphy
This review was meant to be part of a blog tour organised by Hodder & Stoughton, to see what other reviewers thought, visit their blogs listed below. Then if you get a copy comeback and tell us what you thought, we’d really appreciate the feedback.
the library door 