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Ragdoll by Daniel Cole


Michelle

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Crime is a genre I've moved away from over the past few years, but I'm always looking out for something a little different. This book was being mentioned on twitter quite a bit, and the early copy was offered to me by a publicist I put a lot of faith in.

 

Ragdoll certainly does offer that extra I was looking for, and is not your average detective story. A body is found which is actually body parts from six different victims, all stitched together.. nicknamed 'ragdoll' by the press. The killer then releases the names of six further victims to the press, including the dates of their deaths. The police are therefore faced with protecting these six people, whilst trying to figure out the identities of the body parts to try to find out what links them, and who the killer could be.

 

What made this stand out for me was some of the inventive ways in which the poor victims were killed, the unexpected humour, and the characters. When you have a list of six names, you know that not all, if any, will survive, but the methods are certainly unexpected! In amongst all this, humour is a very difficult thing to get right.. but to me the author is spot on - just simple lines and comments which work perfectly, and lighten the mood a touch whilst reading.

 

The characters were really interesting - they're all flawed, human, and believable, and I'm hoping to see much more of them in the second book. 

 

It's not quite perfect, and there were a few aspects which for me didn't work as well as they should - but it's certainly in my top 10 books read this year, and I do believe it's going to be big. It's not published until Feb 2017, but it's definitely one to see an eye out for.

 

On an interesting note, the author originally wrote this as a screenplay, for which he received a lot of rejections. Whilst reading, it's easy to see this influence, but difficult to see why it was rejected. I could see it as a Hollywood film, but I really hope not.. it needs to keep it's British setting, and it's humour, and would make a great TV series!

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Definitely of the same opinion as you with this one, Michelle. The humour really sold it for me. I find it's really difficult for a crime thriller/police procedural to do something unique now, but this was nicely crafted. Could definitely also see this done as a TV series and think I remember reading that the rights have been sold? (Don't quote me on that, could be wrong.)

 

Anyway, agreed: definitely one to look out for in 2017.

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