By D K Hood http://www.dkhood.com/ @DKHood_Author
Narrated by Lauryn Allman
Published by Bookouture Audio https://bookouture.com/ @bookouture (a division of Hachett UK) https://www.hachette.co.uk/ @HachetteUK
361 pages (10 hours 3 minutes) ISBN 9781837906086
Publication date 12 September 2023
Dark Angel is the first novel in the Detective Beth Katz series.
I was allowed access to an audio review copy on Net Galley https://www.netgalley.com/ @NetGalley. Thanks to the Author and Bookouture Audio for organising this.
The Cover
Nice and moody with hints of isolated Montana, it does the job.
From the blurb
It was Beth Katz’s serial killer father who made her like she is: a successful FBI agent and an unstoppable vigilante dedicated to hunting down murderers who have evaded capture. Beth will push herself to the limits to deliver justice. Even if it means killing those who deserve to die.
When the body of missing schoolgirl Brooklyn Daniels is discovered in a secluded patch of woodland on the outskirts of town, Beth and her partner Dax Styles race to the scene. Brooklyn and her best friend left home to pick wildflowers a week ago and vanished without trace.
Taking in Brooklyn’s body carefully laid on a blanket and the dress neatly folded next to her, Beth suddenly freezes. She’s seen this before: in the files of a cold case. The perpetrator takes two girls—one vanishes, the other is killed and left with her clothes beside her. Now Beth knows she has a twisted serial killer on her hands, she’ll stop at nothing to catch him. Even if it means going against Dax’s orders…
The narration
I enjoyed the narration; it was easy on the ear and demonstrated a decent range. The only small criticism would be the lack of menace in the killer’s voice.
My thoughts
Serial killer thrillers, the crime fiction fan’s guilty secret. Come on own up, most of us enjoy a nice gory or disturbing mass killer read. Why stop at one victim when its only fiction, as Harry Lime (Orsen Wells) remarks to Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) in famous Ferris wheel scene in the film version of The Third Man if one of those dots stops moving who would care, so let the bodies pile up. The Silence of the Lambs brough serial killers into the acceptable mainstream, so providing it doesn’t become an unhealth obsession dig in and enjoy.
Phillip Larkin was right about mums and dads in This Be the Verse (you know the one with the F word) and that is never truer than for Beth Katz, whose father was a serial killer who fills her up with his major fault. Call it PTSD if you like, seeing her father killing her mother has a profound and disturbing effect upon Katz, she takes on his urge to kill. The major difference between them is their victims.
Katz is highly intelligent and thrives at the FBI, first in cybercrime investigations and then working undercover. She is focussed, fiercely determined and deadly, a woman who can certainly handle herself. Like a highly functioning alcoholic, she can pass through the day unnoticed, but at night instead of reaching for the bottle she gets her relief by reaching for a knife, to despatch some vermin-like criminal. She only kills those who deserve to die, in her opinion of course, becoming judge and executioner like Judge Dredd. Thereby paradoxically becoming the very thing she is looking to eliminate. Here it draws on the primal instincts of the reader, of course such actions are abhorrent, but we seem to have deep seated desire for revenge and tough justice for some crimes. One such killing she carries out is flawed and that sees her moved from DC to the backwoods (literally) of Montana, where another maverick Dak Styles can keep an eye on her.
The developing relationship between Beth and Dak is the core of the novel. They are two flawed, damaged agents who have developed different ways of coping with their issues. As this is to be a series with male and female leads it is natural that, ‘will they, or won’t they’, will surely come into play. The classic sexual chemistry element which can make or break a series, particularly on TV, which is currently at the poles apart stage with neither in the right frame of mind, but we shall see how things progress.
Rattlesnake Creek is very much small-town old west, a world away from DC and with entirely different problems. Here Dak deals with the likes of drunken miners and bullies for the sheriff and is not averse to taking four or five men on and dishing out a beating. He also tells Katz if someone draws a weapon then shoot to kill. So not lilywhite himself but very much at the other end of the scale to Beth. Of course, she needs to hide the most extreme elements of her behaviour and he sees her as being reckless, but there is an overriding sense of them coming to a rapprochement at some point. It’s just a case of how deep she will drag him down or will he end up discovering the truth and bring her crashing down. This gives a nice edgy feel to proceedings.
It’s very much a thriller and so has all the ingredients one might expect, chases, crashes, fights, jeopardy and danger, along with a distinctly unpleasant paedophile killer. There is a glimpse behind the motivation and history of the killer but let’s just say there’s not a lot of hand wringing over him, it’s not that kind of book or sub-genre. Instead, it rattles along at pace with gung-ho all-out action, which is slickly delivered with style, panache and a little wit at times. The violence is not graphic and is essential to the plot. There are British serial killer novels but America just feels like the natural territory and so they feel more convincing.
Dark Angel is a stylish serial killer thriller to introduce a new series, it’s going to be interesting following Beth Katz’s progress.
Dark Angel can be purchased via the publisher’s website here
The author
D.K. Hood is The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Amazon bestselling author of the Detective Kane and Alton Series. Her spine chilling, fast-paced serial killer thrillers revolve around Sheriff Jenna Alton and her ex-special forces Deputy, Dave Kane. As the main characters fight crime, their secret pasts are never far away. Set in and around the fictional backwoods town of Black Rock Falls, Montana, known locally as Serial Killer Central, D.K.’s imagery takes the reader into the scenes with her. Given the title “Queen of Suspense” by her reviewers, D.K.’s writing style offers her readers a movie style, sizzling fast thrill ride.
Source: Publisher’s website
The narrator
Originally from Calgary,Alberta, Lauryn traveled to Montreal to study at the prestigious National Theatre School of Canada. Ms.Allman lived and worked in Montreal and Toronto for eight years prior to moving to the UK. Her last three productions are award winning, most notably If we were birds for best production at the 2014 META awards and iShow for the Buddies in Bad Times vanguard award for risk and innovation at the 2013 Summerworks Festival.
Source: Mandy.com
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