Book Review: The Twenty

Mrs P

Apr 26

Sam Holland ~ The Twenty

Synopsis

When DCI Adam Bishop arrives at the crime scene in the dead of night, the sight of the body is bad enough—but what Adam notices next chills him to his core. More bodies surface. And the spray-painted numbers daubed above the corpses reveal the horrific truth: the killer is counting down. But to what end?

Adam has no idea—until Dr. Romilly Cole knocks on his door with damning evidence pointing to a series of murders fifteen years earlier—a case she knows intimately from her past. Now, it's personal - and the next knock on his door could be fatal.

Review

Before you read this review I just want you to go and check you've locked the doors. No seriously, please go and check. Let's just say since reading this book I have obsessively checked my doors. I've also woken up in the middle of the night convinced there was someone in my bedroom.

Yeah, that's how much this book affected me. I loved The Echo Man, which I read last year, but The Twenty really steps it up a notch when it comes to truly gruesome crime scenes. This book has SO. MUCH. BLOOD. It's horrific, vile and disturbing.

Of course I loved it!

Holland has a way of immersing you into the story - whether or not you want to be - and really getting under your skin. From the book's dark and grotesque beginning, to its bloodthirsty ending, this book is likely to shock you and make your skin crawl. The multiple narrators provide us with background into known and unknown serial killers and we are also lulled into a false sense of hope on numerous occasions. This book is not only brutal in the physical violence of the crimes, but also in the emotional turmoil it will inflict on its readers. Nobody is safe from this author's pen and if I had the chance to look into her mind I would take it, because this book is fifty shades of fucked up....

It is a little farfetched at times, and I didn't love it quite as much as The Echo Man, but my God it's good. Really good. And dark - I might have mentioned that before, but even hardcore fans of true crime should be satisfied by the bloody goriness of The Twenty.

But seriously, go and lock your doors!