About The Book
A killer who sends drawings of the murders he will commit.
A detective who will do anything to stop him.
Detective Claudia Nunn has never seen anything so beautiful — or so horrifying.
The intricate drawing is sent to her at work. It shows a man, naked on a bed. His arms are bound, his face contorted in agony, a huge blade stuck deep in his back.
Gory? Certainly. Something to worry about? Not likely. Police get sent weird stuff all the time.
Until Claudia is called to a crime scene that exactly recreates the drawing.
When another sketch arrives, Claudia thinks she might have a serial killer on her hands, who thinks he’s an artist.
Claudia’s in a race against time to stop anyone else dying — and the next victim could be her.
My Review
With thanks to the author for the copy received. Seconds to Die is the second book in the series to feature Claudia, Dom and the rest of the team who are tasked with solving more complex cases. They have a lot to prove and this case, featuring the murderer that the press have named The Artist is a difficult one.
This is a investigation that affects Claudia deeply. She is desperate to get a result but also grieving the murder of her friend and stepmother Ruth. That investigation is the topic of the previous book and I do recommend that you read that first. The investigation and certain aspects of it feature heavily in this novel.
The murders committed are vividly described, I didn’t need to see the drawings to get an image in my head of how the victims looked. The way they differed made this case difficult to solve, not helped by the very short time frame they were given with little idea of where the crime took place. And with pressure from above and an increasingly fractious relationship with Dom it was no surprise that Claudia was struggling.
One of the reasons I like Rebecca’s books so much is that they show the police as not always coping well with their situation. You see the exhaustion, forgetting to eat and frustration of having to deal with the media. I had never thought that giving a murderer a title would cause anger before.
I have to admit that I wondered if this book would be similar to others that have been published recently concerning art and murder but it isn’t. This is a completely original novel and one which I enjoyed a lot.
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