"slick, intense, and harrowing... like good thrillers should be..."
The Straw Men
By Michael Marshall
Reviewed by Matt Adcock
Every parents nightmare… Their 14year old daughter abducted… An insane serial killer "The Upright Man", on the loose… A grisly trail that means if it’s ‘him’ that has their child, she is likely to be tortured and has at best about a week to live…
Cue hard boiled and self hating LA homicide detective hero (whose own daughter was one of the killer’s victims) and a link to a guy who is fast finding out that nothing he thought he knew about his past or his parents was based on fact.
Mix these elements and pump them through the highly creative mind of Michael Marshall – Brit author of the very cool ‘Spares, One of Us and Only Forward’ and you have an absolute grade 'A' thriller that will rip your still beating heart out and eat it in front of you... The good news for sicko killer thriller fans being that The Straw Men is only part one of a trilogy (I will be seeking out and reading part 2 The Lonely Dead ASAP)…
Sample passage page 437:
“All three had guns. All were firing them.
The youth died first. His technique was pure television: gun held out sideways, gangbanger style. Bobby had him down with one shot. I slipped behind one of the pillars and straight out the other side, getting McGregor first in the thigh, then the chest. I still only narrowly avoided taking one to the face, felt the hum as it spun past my head. I dropped to one knee and scooted behind one corner of the reception, praying that the woman hadn’t seen me. Reloaded dropping half the bullets…
McGregor was still shooting. The woman behind the desk nearly took Bobby out before I took a breath and stood up, emptying half of my gun into her.”
MM said that he saw the book as: “a reminder that we're animals, and that much of what we do and how we behave can be more easily explained by remembering that, rather than pretending that we're a bunch of angels wandering amongst the beasts."
That sounds about right to me…
The Straw Men is a cracking read and would lend itself to a film or mini series – am really looking forward to parts 2 & 3.
Buy it at Amazon: The Straw Men
Darkmatters rating system (out of 5):
Action öööö – When it hits, it hits hard
Laughs ööö – Some decent black humour
Horror ööö – Gets grim but not over the top
Babes ö – Nothing to get excited about in this area
Overall öööö (buy it and never look at your neighbour the same way again)
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