Birthdays for the Dead
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- €8.49
Publisher Description
Twelve years. Twelve dead girls. Thirteen will be unlucky for some.
The Number One bestselling crime thriller from the award-winning Stuart MacBride. A bloody, brilliant and brutal story of murder, kidnap and revenge.
Detective Constable Ash Henderson has a dark secret…
Five years ago his daughter, Rebecca, went missing on the eve of her thirteenth birthday. A year later the first card arrived: home-made, with a Polaroid picture stuck to the front – Rebecca, strapped to a chair, gagged and terrified. Every year another card: each one worse than the last.
The tabloids call him ‘The Birthday Boy’. He’s been snatching girls for twelve years, always just before their thirteenth birthday, killing them slowly, then torturing their families with his homemade cards.
But Ash hasn’t told anyone what really happened to Rebecca – they all think she ran away – because if anyone finds out, he’ll be taken off the investigation. And he’s sacrificed too much to give up before his daughter’s murderer gets what he deserves…
Reviews
Praise for Birthdays for the Dead:
‘MacBride is a damned fine writer – no one does dark and gritty like him’ Peter James
‘The master of murderous mayhem is back to his best with a belter of a book … a page-turner’ The Sun
Praise for Stuart MacBride:
‘Fierce, unflinching and shot through with the blackest of humour; this is crime fiction of the highest order’ Mark Billingham
‘Ferocious and funny, this is Tartan Noir at its best’ Val McDermid
‘Stuart MacBride’s thrillers just keep getting better’ Express
About the author
Stuart MacBride is the No.1 bestselling author of the DS Logan McRae series. His novels have won him the CWA Dagger in the Library, the Barry Award for Best Debut Novel, and Best Breakthrough Author at the ITV3 crime thriller awards. Stuart’s other works include Halfhead, a near-future thriller, Sawbones, a novella aimed at adult emergent readers, and several short stories. He lives in the north-east of Scotland with his wife, Fiona, and cat, Grendel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A cop's horrifying personal connection with a serial killer puts a chilling spin on MacBride's solid stand-alone. Det. Constable Ash Henderson, of Oldcastle, Scotland, is on the police team investigating "the Birthday Boy," who for the last 12 years has abducted 12-year-old girls. Each year on their birthdays, the psychopath sends their parents Polaroids of them being tortured to death. Ash's daughter, Rebecca, was taken five years before, but to stay on the case he has hidden this fact, a secret that drives him into gambling debts with the local mob and away from his ex-wife, Michelle, and his other daughter, Katie, who both blame Rebecca for running away. Teamed with quirky forensic psychologist Alice McDonald, Ash is shaken after some of the bodies are found, just as another girl disappears. MacBride delves into revenge and grief while adding a strong emotional wallop and avoiding the clich s of the serial killer genre.
Customer Reviews
Too violent by far
Ash Henderson is a ridiculous character who leaves a trail of battered victims behind him as he deals out extreme violence while taking the law into his own hands. If the author intends a reader to side with Ash, then he seriously underestimates the moral values of this reader at least. A dreadful book, badly written and obsessed with violence for violence's sake.