The Heart Collector
-
-
4.4 • 75 Ratings
-
-
- £2.99
-
- £2.99
Publisher Description
London, England.
A woman's body is discovered in a home-made grave in a church cemetery. Her torso has been mutilated beyond recognition, and a hole has been cut in her chest to expose her motionless heart.
The murder echoes the crimes of a legendary, uncaptured serial killer known as the Heart Collector.
Private detective Alex Rainer believes this to be a copycat killer attempting to strike fear throughout London. However, there's one problem.
The heart inside the victim's chest doesn't belong to her. It belongs to the Heart Collector's last known victim, killed thirty years prior.
In order to track down the killer, Alex must navigate a bizarre, underground world of collectors and serial killer enthusiasts to track down the perpetrator. He must locate the detectives who worked on the original case three decades ago to uncover secrets which have been lost to the ages. It seems that a long-dead mystery has returned to life.
Alex finds himself on the trail of an elusive, walking obscurity with the ability to simply disappear into the shadows. A brutal, sadistic monster who literally toys with women's hearts. A killer for whom love and hate are the same.
Customer Reviews
Thoroughly enjoyed.
I like this book so much that in several parts, I was trying to go to sleep, then the storyline unfolded a little further which made keep reading. Would recommend.
The Heart Collector
Gripping from beginning to end. An exceptionally good read. Taut with tension, yet still the occasional laugh. Definitely memorable.
Badly written
An interesting premise but a very badly written book.
The story followed the investigation into a serial killer who had resurfaced after a 30 year hiatus, and the collaboration between a police detective and a private investigator trying to solve the case.
A potentially good idea, really badly executed. I finished just to see how the story ended, but I was irritated every time I started to read. I wouldn't recommend this book.
It wasn't just poor editing, which meant lots of typos and grammatical errors, it was the incorrect usage of vocabulary and the poor phrasing that made it difficult to follow what the writer was trying to say. (Top tip; don't use a word unless you are 100% certain you know what it means, and don't use a long convoluted sentence to try and show writerly (ahem) skill, when a simple straightforward line clearly conveying your meaning means better writing.)
Also, do try and decide whether you want to write a piece of detective fiction or a book about sub-cultures collecting serial killer memorabilia. The long digressions did nothing for the story.
It was difficult enough to follow the story, as it jumped all over the place, with the continuity repeatedly broken by inserts that seemed to either be 1) bits the writer had forgotten to put in earlier or 2) bits the writer needed to slot in to make the story work. Either way it was confusing and made the progression of the narrative very stilted.
The most annoying thing about the book, however, was the fact that the writer had tried to tell a story set in London, featuring a murder case being investigated by the Met. Yet he apparently knew absolutely sod all about either London or the Met. At least do a little research so that what you are writing has a ring of truth about it. Or, if you can't be bothered, set your story in a fictional place with a fictional police force. All the stuff the writer got wrong was just another distraction from the story - at least for anyone with the slightest knowledge about London.
Oh. And no one anywhere in the UK says "@sshole". It's "@rsehole"!