I picked up Snow Killer on a recommendation, and I’m really glad I did. It was that good I went straight to book 2 The Soul Killer
Gentle Giant, and family man, DI John Barton is the main Police lead and a cracking character, but what steals the show in these books, and makes them stand out in current crime fiction, is the main criminals.
Greenwood dedicates as much time to the criminal and their activities, as he does to the Police and their investigations.
The criminals sections are written in the first person, with the investigation side written in the third person.
This allows Ross to get right into the criminal mind and explore the psyche the murderers.
The Snow Killer
In this book the killer is out for revenge. 50 years ago her family were murdered in a Gangland killing. She escapes badly injured, with the killers thinking she had died.
It took her a few years but she got revenge. Now a he’s killing again, but why.
An old Lady annoyed at the way the youth have no respect. The way the neighbourhood is run by silly, arrogant, tooth sucking teens.
Barton really has his work cut out. The old cases don’t even come on his horizon until a retired officer comes under suspicion for an unrelated issue.
Who would suspect an old lady. But then again we were all young once, and why would our attitude change just because our body isn’t as strong.
A gun is a great leveller, so is a well placed knife in skilled hands
Soul Killer
Following on from the aftermath of the shocking end to the Snow Killer
This time the killer is very close to home.
Again revenge is at the heart of the crimes. This time the killer is young, clever and calculated. But what Greenwood does brilliantly is show the escalating downward spiral of their mental health as they start to make mistakes.
One killing has to lead to another, just to cover up their tracks, the more killings the more chance of a mistake. The cold calculated killer starts to turn into a panicked psychopath.
One of Barton’s team is a new and very blunt young DC. The team find him hard to get on with but Barton sees something in him and lets him have his head. He hits the nail on the head quickly but is largely ignored, after all how could the person he thinks is a serial killer be responsible, they wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Both of these books had me hooked. I’ve not come across any other stories that give the killer so much time in a story, and have them writes so well.
Greenwood gives a real gravitas to the mind of the killer. He looks at their history, in both stories the issues the killers have started years ago and have festered in their minds.
He looks at the planning and consequences. The average person these days think they are Forensically aware, and know that a mistake will almost inevitably lead to their capture. So when killers start to make mistakes, even the coolest start to panic. The more they panic the more mistakes they make.
Barton’s team are good at what they do. There are some great characters amongst them, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but everybody knows their worth, what they are good at, and how to support each other.
At the end of the second book, in the acknowledgments, yes some people do read them and I’m one of them, Greenwood states he didn’t realise, when he was writing the first book, that it would turn into a trilogy.
Well it must really have come as a surprise to him that it went beyond book three. In fact according to Amazon there’s five books in the series.
How good are the first two. I’ve just finished Soul Killer and immediately downloaded the rest of the series.
The books are also available as Audiobooks, narrated by David Thorpe
Publisher Boldwood Books. Available now on Amazon.
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