Blog Tour: A Murder List – Jackie Kabler

Steph Warren - Bookshine

Jun 3

*I received a free copy of this book with thanks to the author and Rachel Gilbey at Rachel's Random Resources blog tours. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*

Blurb: When Mary receives a blank diary as a present, she thinks nothing of it. Until she opens the diary, and sees it's not blank after all…

1st January MURDER LISA, OXFORD
1st February MURDER JANE, BIRMINGHAM
1st March MURDER DAVID, CARDIFF
1st April MURDER MARY, CHELTENHAM

Is this some kind of sick joke? But…it's the end of January now. And a woman named Lisa was murdered in Oxford on 1st January.

Does that mean there really is a killer out there, planning to commit a new murder on the first of each month? And is the Mary due to be killed on 1st April her?

The clock is ticking for Mary to uncover the truth, before she becomes the next victim on the killer's list…

This is a real page-turner of a thriller, with lots of twists and turns. There are only a small number of suspects throughout, and yet I pretty much suspected all of them at some point or another, including the rather secretive main character and narrator, Mary.

I was captivated from the start by the fiery trauma in Mary's past and by the very clever hook of the diary 'murder list' and the author kept the pace up as the story unfolded, giving us perspectives from the various police investigators in Oxford, Birmingham, Cardiff and Cheltenham, as well as Mary's viewpoint.

I was a little less keen, however, on the romance side-plot, mainly because of the 'overlap' aspect of it. Up until then, I had bought fully into the chemistry we were shown, but then I found it hard to reconcile the behaviour of a true friend with what ensued thereafter.

Overall though, this was a really clever, twisty thriller which kept me guessing right up to the very end and was very difficult to put down until that last page turned. This might have been my first Jackie Kabler thriller, but I would definitely read more in future!

''Where did you come from, then?' I ask it, out loud. It's actually a nice-looking diary, a page a day, boxed and bound in black leather. I remove the plastic lid of the box and slip the diary out, opening the front cover, wondering if there might be any clue to the sender's identity inside. Instead, I'm surprised to see a bright-yellow sticky note on the first page.
It says, in block capitals:

READ ME

What?
Weird, I think.
Frowning, I flick through the first few pages containing the usual calendars and lists of notable dates and religious festivals for the coming year, until I reach the 1st of January. And then I freeze.
What the hell is this?
There's an entry on the page, just three words, in black ink and block capitals just like the sticky note.

MURDER LISA, OXFORD'

- Jackie Kabler, The Murder List

About the Author

Jackie Kabler is an internationally bestselling author of psychological thrillers including The Perfect Couple, Am I Guilty? and The Happy Family. She worked as a newspaper reporter and then in television news for twenty years, including nearly a decade on GMTV. She later appeared on BBC and ITV news, presented a property show for Sky, hosted sports shows on Setanta Sports News and worked as a media trainer for the Armed Forces. She now combines her crime writing with her job as a presenter on shopping channel QVC. Jackie lives in Gloucestershire with her husband.