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Looking for a crime thriller and a savvy killer outsmarting everyone in London? This review should give you an idea as to whether humorous crime thriller Ragdoll is your cup of tea 😉 !
Title: Ragdoll
Author: Daniel Cole
Pages: 376 (paperback)
Genre(s): Thriller
Point Of View: 3rd Person (switching character focus)
The Cremation Killer. 26 dead teenage girls in 26 days. Detective Sergeant William Oliver Layton-Fawkes was the one who caught Galuib Khalid. The jury appointed him innocent. Now, four years later, after spending time in a mental institution to treat his supposed Anti-social disorder and divorcing his bitch of a wife, Wolf is onto a new case, the Ragdoll.Â
6 victims, 6 different body parts sewn together and held in position by hundreds of small strings like a puppet, arm outstretched and pointing to Wolf’s rundown apartment on the other side of the street. The case seems to be centered around The Cremation Killer himself, the one suspect Wolf almost lost everything over.Â
So what happens if his obsession of catching the one responsible returns and how will it affect the team when a list of the next victims is sent to Wolf’s ex-wife, a power-hungry journalist. And the last name on the list? William Oliver Layton-Fawkes.
It’s impossible to know who the murderer is
Thanks to the fabulous writing of Daniel Cole, it feels like you are chasing the killer through different parts of London yourself. And feel the need to scream at the team for not seeing what’s obvious to you or not catching on to the person you suspect to be the murderer. By the way, you can’t know. There’s no way for you to figure out who the Ragdoll Killer is, because this novel is unpredictable, which gets you hooked.Â
You will fly through the last hundred pages of suspense because at one point you are going to question everything. You won’t know what to believe anymore when this case turns out to be way bigger than initially thought.
Excellent Humor & superb characters
The humor in Ragdoll is extraordinary. Not only will the awkward moments between characters make you laugh, but the carelessness of Will and the simply absurd actions of one of the next victims.
You will love the insight we get into all of the protagonists due to the third person viewpoint even if you usually dislike multiple points of view novels.Â
The team consists of four main detectives working on the case. Finlay (an elderly Scottish lad in reaching distance of retirement and Wolf’s friend and babysitter), Baxter (Wolf’s sullen, young former partner and potential love interest), Edmunds (the newbie on the team, refreshingly naive but sharp as a knife) and the man, the myth, the legend (drum rolls please) Wolf (the man you can’t really figure out, laid-back but obsessive, and with way too many love interests in my opinion).Â
Then there’s Simmons who’s leading the investigation and Andrea, Wolf’s ex, and the woman you constantly beg to do the right thing. Absolute favorites: Finlay and Edmunds!
A Savvy Killer Within An Intriguing Plot
If you normally shy away from crime thrillers because you are bored in the (temporary) lapse of suspense you won’t have the chance to feel so thanks to the ever-changing focus on characters and occasional time jumps to the past.
Ragdoll is a complex novel with a very smart murderer who seems to be everywhere at once and at least one step ahead at all times as well as a team of detectives who couldn’t be more different and unique.
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Intrigued and feeling the need to read Ragdoll? You can buy it here:Â Thalia