Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for A Gift For Dying by M.J. Arlidge where I have a review of M.J.'s latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers who organised this tour in conjunction with Angela McMahon, Penguin UK and Michael Joseph to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of this review so without further ado, here it is:
A Gift For Dying is set in Chicago (where I'd love to visit one day), we are introduced to Adam Brandt, a forensic psychologist who is well used to dealing with the most damaged members of society. Adam seems to have it all, a beautiful home, a wife and a baby on the way, he has the perfect life, that is until he meets Kassie and he's never met anyone like her before in his line of work.
Kassie is a troubled teenager who claims to have a terrible gift - with one look into your eyes, she can see when and how you will die. Adam knows Kassie must be insane. But then a serial killer hits the city and only Kassie seems to know where he'll strike next, against all his suspicions Adam starts to believe her but he just doesn't realise how deadly his faith might prove. Then when Kassie accidentally bumps into someone on the street and “sees” their fast approaching murder she tries to intervene but this only brings her to the attention and under suspicion with the police.
I'm a huge fan of MJ Arlidge's writing when I was recommended to read his first novel in the DI Helen Grace series, Eeny Meeny which I absolutely adored and from there I quickly started to love the books I've read so far in the series (I've a few more to read) but besides that I was delighted to hear the there was another new novel coming out and that it was a stand alone novel too. The serial killer/sociopath character was absolutely brilliant, very well written and cleverly constructed. They were everything you'd expect with a sociopath - cold, calculating, manipulating and has no regard for anyone's feelings or who they hurt on their path of destruction.
I enjoyed this novel immensely, it was absolutely brilliant, very gorey in parts so you may need a strong stomach and remember to breathe also but this is what makes the novel. At times, I could feel I was right there with the victims and I will admit that I found parts of the story hard to read and in places it made my skin crawl but it definitely didn't disappoint. It was a spine-chilling , pulse pounding, heart thumping rollercoaster ride. I know that his book will stick in my memory longer than most because of the subject matter that was involved and especially that ending which I definitely wasn't expecting either. I am really looking forward to MJ's next book already where I'm hoping it won't be too long until another novel regardless of whether it's the next DI Grace in the series or another stand-alone is upon us.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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