A wickedly effective thriller

Helen, thirties, is police commissioner, promoted most women at that age in his region (Southampton, England). She is as cold and efficient (hard not to think of Kay Scarpetta Patricia Cornwell), never suggesting anything about his private life. In this novel frenzied pace, it will be a nightmare plunge.

The book starts out with a bang, and the pace will be maintained to the end, or almost (you end up guessing everything, that mechanically removes the suspense). Amy and Sam are a young and lovely couple, to the bright future. They go by hitchhiking, common practice for them. A pickup truck stops. A woman offers to take them, and even offers them coffee to warm them. Except they never go home. They will be locked in a disused swimming pool, no food, no water, no nothing except a revolver with a bullet inside. The instigator of the operation asked to choose. The person remaining alive will be freed. The horror they are going through is treated ten pages, remarkable efficiency.

What happens to them will not be the only episode. Other duos will also be selected and subjected to the same torture. Who? Why? Y t he links them? Helen and her team must solve the mystery of about 400 pages, punctuated by short chapters of a few pages each, absolutely formidable (action, rhythm, psychological upheavals cliffanghers at the end of each chapter ...). Mechanics is formidable, the emphasis to victims, suspects hate, we suffer with the characters that we follow, and all our certainties are turned upside down.

In the end the story is relatively simple (I met notably in a famous TV series, and the procedure of torture inevitably reminds some famous horror films) but the skill and the talent of the author make entertainment outstanding (admittedly sticky, giving nauseous at times). I highly recommend this book to any lover / trice thrillers.

Note 1: the author face of success is currently developing two new volumes with the same investigator.
Note 2: careful not to put this novel all hands, some scenes may shock (violence, cruelty, sex to a lesser extent).