Aftershock

First off, let's talk about what this book really isn't. It's not a deep exploration of the human psyche, it's not a look at a disturbing and twisted world of serial killers, and it's really not all that messed up, when you get down to it. The back matter in other words, lies to you, as does the really quite eerily pretty picture of a run down house on the cover. It's a book about policing, it acts as an ideologue platform for someone to talk about reform in the Scottish police system, the same way that Tom Clancy books are really just ways to talk about international counter terrorism policy and why America is great. There similarities end. This is not a novel about fast paced action, it's really a lot more like watching an episode of The Bill. An ensemble cast mean that it takes 38 pages for the titular main character, Bob Skinner, to get introduced, so many other characters must be thrown at us, and so much ongoing office politics has to get canvassed. The writing about policing is only moderately interesting, the crimes committed, despite being murders, are not anywhere on par with creepy descriptions to be found in other examples of the serial killer genre. In fact, the crimes and police work eventually give way to some form of masturabatory detective fantasy where one of the secondary characters succeeds in catching what amounts to a super villain of a corporate scumbag. But for all of this, I enjoyed the book. It really WAS easy to read, and despite the fact that I don't usually read this genre, or enjoy out and out office politics descriptions, or being lectured to about the correct way to write policies (especially when I disagree with said policies), I honestly found the book hard to put down. Chapter breaks come at appropriate times, and never are all that long - 440 pages includes 104 chapters - giving you nice points to think "just one more and then I'll sleep". The characters ARE well written, and although the serial killer is not themselves given to us in gruesome detail, and the interviews the officers get suffer from "the guilty always confess", it was fun.