Since I started writing reviews, Martina Cole keeps coming back into the frame, because of the collection I bought all those years ago. I cannot in good faith give them away until I have read each book. Now I come to the penultimate book in the original set that I bought, and I find myself in the position again of reviewing a book I didn't enjoy, and trying to review it as objectively as possible. So here goes.
George Markham is a seriously disturbed man that starts out looking at BDSM pornography and ends up roaming the streets raping and murdering a string of young women. Kate Burrows is the detective inspector trying to find him. Patrick Kelly is a local hard-man, and father of one of the victims of Markham's killing spree. Patrick and Kate meet in the course of the case and start to fall in love over the background of tragedy, but love between a borderline villain and a senior police officer would be paved with troubles, even if there wasn't a vicious murderer on the loose.
The pacing of this novel is much better than of any other Martina Cole novel I have read. Rather than a biographical life story of a character embroiled in crime, this is a police investigation drama, where the reader has the advantage of knowing from the start who did it. The tension of the investigation mounts steadily over the course of the novel, as the police resort to more and more drastic methods of finding their man.
George Markham should be an interesting character, but aside from feeling a distaste for his views about women, I couldn't find him at all hateful or sympathetic. He wasn't real enough; he was another bland character brought to the pages. I couldn't believe in him, even as a psychopath. It was very disappointing. Cole tries to make him sympathetic by telling some of backstory and childhood, with his overbearing, controlling mother, but I couldn't believe in the mother either, so I didn't feel sorry for him... I didn't feel very much at all.
Psychologically, Cole's serial killer was slightly off. Markham starts out by watching snuff films, and acting as a peeping tom. Peeping toms do sometimes turn into rapists, but they usually do so by breaking into houses. Markham's first victim is killed in the woods near her house. Admittedly not many people will know the psychology of serial killers when reading these books, but often the devil is in the detail and here I was let down.
Detective Inspector Kate Burrows is a better character to me; she is a single mother living with her daughter and mother, trying to make ends meet. She loves her job, and has strict moral values. Theoretically she should be quite likeable in her actions as well; she has to deal with some sexism in the workplace, and keep a professional attitude when her home life is falling apart. However, again, Cole's writing style puts me off all of her characters. Cole states outright the character traits she thinks her characters have, without letting the reader come to any of their own conclusions.
Kate's relationship with Patrick Kelly is almost believable, but they both have fiery tempers, and start monologuing at each other at the drop of a hat. The constant repetition of arguments and heart-to-hearts and soul-seeking on the part of both of these characters gets very irritating, and with every rehash of a sentence to the effect of “no matter what he did, Kate still wanted him,” makes me lose respect for the character and the author in the same moment.
All or most of my gripes with Martina Cole come to her writing style. She switches point-of-view repeatedly in the middle of scenes, and she tells detailed stories about characters that will only be in the book for one scene in an attempt to make you feel sorry for them when their ends befall them. Why not let you feel sympathy through the family that have been left behind? Cole leaves very little about her characters to the imagination, but an awful lot about the places and rooms.
As before, I am finding a lot to criticise about this book, and little to compliment. However, after reading eight Martina Cole novels, I find myself still unable to enjoy them. If you can, then you will probably enjoy 'The LadyKiller' but I did not. I'm afraid I have failed in objectivity.
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