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Title: Heart of the Demon

Subtitle: D.S. Hunter Kerr, Book 1

Author: Michael Fowler

Narrator: Brian J. Gill

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-16-17

Publisher: Caffeine Nights Ltd

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Detective Sergeant Hunter Kerr and his partner, DC Grace Marshall, are called to the scene of a brutal slaying: The victim is a 14 year-old girl. The killer has been disturbed, but he has left behind a puzzle. What is the significance of the marks gouged into the girl's torso, and why has a playing card been left with the body?

As the Barnwell Major Investigation Team struggles to resolve the mystery, they are confronted with another gruesome discovery: The mummified remains of a teenage girl are unearthed from the slurry of a former colliery site. This corpse bears all the hallmarks of the first slaying, and yet this body has been buried for well over a decade. They soon realize that a savage killer is stalking Yorkshire, preying on young girls, and with the discovery of the bodies comes a series of revelations about the past.

For Detective Sergeant Hunter Kerr and his team, the race against time to prevent further murders is complicated by the fact that several of his men have been involved on the periphery of earlier crimes, without even knowing it. And while the death toll mounts as more bodies are unearthed and new victims succumb to the murderer's sick appetites, he finds that this case comes very close to home. Very close indeed...

Members Reviews:

Sorry, not even worth $2.99...

I love a good British police procedural. I guess like any other genre, sometimes you have to read a bad one to realize how good the good ones really are. To be fair, this one wasn't really bad; it just wasn't good. I lasted about a third of the way through before I was finally driven away by the lack of imagination, simplistic storytelling and trite writing. Not even dwelling on the bad grammar. In so many ways, I think this book would have benefited from a good editor. I know that authors are under a lot of pressure to create a "series". But if you like reading multiple books that build on the same characters, there are many out there in this genre that are much better written and more interesting than this. Stuart McBride, Val McDermid, Reginald Hill, Deborah Crombie, Peter Robinson, Peter James, Susan Hill, John Hardy, Ian Rankin, some of Elizabeth George. Move along; nothing to see here.

Not quite four stars but definitely more than three

Generally, I enjoy the DS Kerr stories. In Heart of the Demon, Fowler has once again created a believable and developed cast of characters, a suspenseful plot and clean, yet complex, story line... except for one character which, unfortunately is the main antagonist.

Other Kerr novels have revolved around serious yet realistic crimes. In this case, the criminal is too criminal, too warped to be believable and ends up coming across a little one-dimensional which is unusual for a Fowler character.

It's almost as if The Joker suddenly appeared in an Agatha Christie novel.

Well, perhaps not that bad...