White Crocodile
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
'An exciting first novel, from a huge new talent.' Mo Hayder
Every so often a thriller appears that offers more to the reader than just entertainment. White Crocodile is just that.
When emotionally damaged mine-clearer Tess Hardy travels to Cambodia to find out the truth behind her ex-husband's death, she doesn't know much about the country or its beliefs.
On arrival, she finds that teenage mothers are going missing, while others are being found mutilated and murdered. As local superstitions breed fear, Tess is drawn into a web of lies that stretches from Cambodia to another murder in England, and a violent secret twenty years old.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Like Tess—the protagonist of her gripping debut novel—British author K. T. Medina is a military engineer who channelled her expertise into clearing land mines in Battambang. From the very first page, White Crocodile parachutes you into the scarred landscape of Cambodia, an intense setting pulsing with history, folklore and superstition. Driven by her desire to solve the mystery of her abusive ex-husband’s abrupt death, Tess takes a position with a charity working in the Asian nation. With danger lurking in every corner, Medina skillfully rattles your nerves as she weaves together a compellingly authentic and original crime thriller.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In British author Medina's absorbing but flawed debut thriller, mine-clearer Tess Hardy, newly arrived in Cambodia, quickly comes to understand why the villagers outside Battambang believe in the White Crocodile a traditional Cambodian symbol of death. A veteran of five years with the British Army's Royal Engineers in Afghanistan, Tess can't ignore the almost palpable sense of menace as, under the cover of a new job with a humanitarian organization, she surreptitiously tries to investigate the death of her estranged husband, Luke, in a mine-clearing accident six months earlier. The author, like her powerful protagonist a former troop commander in the Royal Engineers, convincingly evokes a heartbreaking place that seems to bring out the worst in people ostensibly there to do good. She's less successful integrating the secondary story line of a murder investigation in Manchester, England, or resolving the suspenseful but overly complicated plot. Still, this is a grim tale with grisly details you won't soon forget even though you might prefer to.
