Sunday, May 05, 2013

The devil you know

Reading Michael Robotham is like watching a psychological thriller onscreen: it's horrifying, kind of predictable, and yet gruesomely addictive in a Seven, noir-esque kind of way.

I like how his books alternatingly follow the same cast of characters (a police detective, a policewoman, a psychologist).

Night Ferry takes over where Lost leaves off -- and this time the narrator is the injured policewoman who heads to Holland's red light district to figure out who is smuggling pregnant immigrant girls to England to harvest their babies for adoption. In Shatter, Joe the psychologist is back to solve a series of grisly suicides. They all go rogue to solve horrific, extremely disturbing, and violent crimes.  But their personal lives suffer, making it harder and harder to look away from the disturbing train wreck and put the book down.

You know what's also disturbing?  Hearing a strange "rattle" sound and seeing this two feet away from your hiking boot.

Let's just say, I will be reading more Michael Robotham. But I probably won't go hiking in the eastern Cascades for a while.