Audiobook Review: Perfect Death by Helen Fields

Perfect Death
by Helen Sarah Fields, Robin Laing (Narrator)

Publication date: January 25th 2018
Publisher: Harper Collins

Summary:

There’s no easy way to die…

Unknown to DI Luc Callanach and the newly promoted DCI Ava Turner, a serial killer has Edinburgh firmly in his grip. The killer is taking his victims in the coldest, most calculating way possible – engineering slow and painful deaths by poison, with his victims entirely unaware of the drugs flooding their bloodstream until it’s too late.

But how do you catch a killer who hides in the shadows? A killer whose pleasure comes from watching pain from afar? Faced with their most difficult case yet, Callanach and Turner soon realise they face a seemingly impossible task…

Source: Goodreads

Thoughts:

My third in the Perfect series, “Perfect Death” is the next instalment of D.I. Callanach’s adventures by Helen Fields. D.I. Luc Callanach and the Edinburgh Homicide Team are now feeling very familiar to me and in this book I really enjoyed getting some of the back story to characters we’d met previously. If you’ve never read the series, I’d definitely recommend starting at the beginning so you can get to know them all too.

“Perfect Death” wasn’t my favourite of the three that I’ve read so far but that’s not to say that I didn’t like it. I found that it didn’t hold my attention as much as the two previous reads have and it was probably the least memorable of the three so far.

In the first couple of chapters we learn that the naked body of a young woman has been found on Arthur’s Seat, the main peak of a group of hills in Edinburgh. There’s nothing obvious that makes the death suspicious but as the team investigate, things don’t seem to be adding up. A further unexpected death prompts more questions and only marks the start of the deaths in this book, as you might imagine from the title.

As is the norm in this series, the alternate chapters see things from the killer’s point of view and this helps keep up the pace. As I’ve mentioned before, the research that has gone into the nitty gritty of these crimes is outstanding and I applaud the author for this. It’s those little details that make the story feel real and at points make you forget that what you are reading is fictional. There were a few far-fetched elements to this story that I wasn’t a huge fan of, but not certainly not enough to ruin the story for me.

I think I struggled to engage with the more personal storylines that are intertwined throughout, in particular the arrival of Luc Callanach’s mother. I can’t quite believe I’m listing this as a negative, but the book was a little less gory than the previous two and the extra chapters of conversation didn’t quite cut it for me.

All in all, “Perfect Death” is an enjoyable addition to the Perfect series, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in book 4!

Overall rating: “Perfect Death” is the third book in the D.I. Callanach series by Helen Fields. This book was as a little less gruesome than it’s predecessors but still made for an enjoyable read. This slightly more character focussed read gets 3 stars from me.

See my other reviews of books by Helen Fields here: