Book review: The Kill List
A scrupulously plotted thriller
A man in prison for crimes he did not commit, a respected police officer’s reputation at risk, and a vicious murderer still at large - and killing again.
Nadine Matheson’s tense thriller provides a scrupulously plotted series of disasters and difficulties, horrifying moments, and convincingly complex relationships.
The core of the narrative revolves around two sequences of events - the original crimes committed in 1995, and their investigation by then Detective Sergeant Rhimes, and then, twenty-five years later, when it looks as if the man convicted of those crimes will be exonerated. Gradually the police officers’ wish to protect the reputation of their dead colleague turns to a dreadful realisation - the man who was imprisoned was indeed innocent, and a brutal sexual killer is desperately trying to cover his tracks in a series of vicious murders.
Nadine Matheson is a brilliant and compassionate author, and this is a tightly-written, beautifully constructed story, with convincingly confused and complicated characters you want to spend time with, right up until the deeply satisfying ending - with the promise of more to come...