Dark Objects by Simon Toyne
Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by FernHow do you catch a killer if the victim doesn’t exist?
A glamorous woman is murdered in her ultra-luxurious London mansion and her husband goes missing. But according to public records, neither of them exists.
The only leads police have are several objects arranged around the woman’s body, including a set of keys and a book called How to Process a Murder by Laughton Rees—a book that appears to have helped the killer forensically cleanse the crime scene.
Laughton Rees is an academic who doesn’t usually work live cases after the brutal murder of her mother as a teen left her traumatized and emotionally scarred. But the presence of her book at this scene draws her unwillingly into the high-profile investigation and media circus that springs up around it. As the dark objects found beside the body lead her closer to the victim’s identity, a dangerous threat to Laughton and her daughter emerges, as well as painful memories of her past related to the man she has always blamed for her mother’s death: John Rees, Laughton’s father, the current Metropolitan Chief Commissioner and a man she has not spoken to in twenty years.
Laughton’s family was destroyed once and she built herself a new one. Now, she has to face her darkest fears and help catch a killer before this one is destroyed too.
DCI Tannehill Khan is a rising member of North London Murder Squad’s Homicide Assessment Team. While every homicide scene is different – he has never quite encountered one like this though. Amongst three other unusual objects carefully placed around the victim’s body, Laughton Rees’ “how to” instructional book about crime scenes and forensics was a glaring addition. With both Laughton and DCI Khan drawn deeper into the evolving mystery, can they overcome their own demons to find out what the murderer is really trying to achieve?
I found this to be a gripping police procedural/thriller story. I’ve read Toyne’s previous series revolving around Solomon Creed and greatly enjoyed them, so when I noticed he’d begun a new series I was quite happy to give it a crack – and I’m definitely glad I did.
Readers who enjoy British style police procedural stories should find this really appeals to their tastes. While the pace is a little slower and less action-orientated than other genres, I loved the slow build up – and really felt the tension and thriller aspect to the case was particularly well written by the author. I also greatly appreciated how there were multiple different threads running through and slowly tying together a number of the main characters, and by almost halfway in it because clear to me that many – or most – of these threads would soon form one much larger picture that I hadn’t been expecting.
The pieces of the puzzle start to come together as we work through the case from almost a half dozen different perspectives of those involved, and I really felt this helped build both the plot and the tension. I found this to be a really interesting and fresh thriller and by the last quarter or so I simply couldn’t put the book down and needed to binge it into the evening. There were a few twists – some I had guessed (or half guessed) and some took me completely by surprise. I find for me this is a mark of an excellent book; well written enough I could guess some things but still fresh and novel enough that it gave me a few surprises all the same.
Readers who can appreciate a slower pace but more complicated and layered plot with a solid mystery/thriller thrust and a strong police procedural aspect should find this a thoroughly enjoyable book. I’m quite eager for the next of these. Recommended.
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