Deadly Animals
A Novel
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4.2 • 23 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
WINNER OF THE MCDERMID DEBUT AWARD FOR CRIME FICTION
Finding a dead body is not normal. But Ava is not a normal teenager. In this chillingly beautiful mystery, only the obsessive spirit of youth can save a desperate town from the savagery within.
Ava Bonney is a compassionate and studious fourteen-year-old girl with a dark secret: She has an obsessive interest in the macabre and is fascinated by how dead animals decompose. The highway she lives by regularly offers up gifts of roadkill, and in the dead of night Ava loves nothing more than to pull her latest discovery into her roadside den and record her findings.
One night, she stumbles across the body of her classmate. Fearing that her secret ritual could be revealed, she makes an anonymous call to the police. But even when local detectives take over the case, Ava won’t step back—not while teenagers continue to go missing.
Racing alongside the police or against them, Ava is determined to figure out who is hunting her classmates before she becomes the next prey.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Prepare to be creeped out in the best way possible by a debut novel that’s part period murder mystery and part horror story. Ava Bonney is a morbid 14-year-old in 1981 South Birmingham, England, with a weird passion for DIY forensic studies on dead animals. She’s also a precocious, supersmart badass who’s like a one-person crime lab. During her nocturnal roadkill hunts, she discovers that a boy she knows has been savagely murdered. She clues in homicide detective Seth Delahaye but does her own digging even after he’s on the case. Long story short: Kids might be getting killed by something like a werewolf. You’ll need a strong stomach for the grislier bits, but author Marie Tierney keeps the intensity up with every page. A Birmingham native, she gets the Thatcher-era working-class vibe just right—Ava’s world is inhabited not only by corpses and danger but by punk bands, studded belts, and Top of the Pops. Tierney gives us a Winona-in-Beetlejuice-worthy protagonist we can’t help but love. Deadly Animals is a treat for any time you need a scare you can sink your teeth into.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A precocious teenager helps British cops hunt a killer in Tierney's offbeat debut. Aspiring 14-year-old forensic pathologist Ava Bonney is sneaking out of her South Birmingham home at 2 a.m. to visit the secret spot where she stashes and studies roadkill when she discovers the corpse of local teen bully Mickey Grant, who's been missing for two weeks. It's dark, but Ava can still see human bite marks on Mickey's decomposing flesh. She calls the authorities from a phone booth, disguising her voice, and returns home. When Det. Sgt. Seth Delahaye of the West Midlands Police comes canvassing the next day, Ava keeps quiet about the call, but offers keen observations about Mickey that prompt Delahaye to consult her when other children go missing. Meanwhile, Ava conducts her own clandestine investigation, discovering a disturbingly cruel animal death that may be the work of the same killer and digging into rumors about a man-sized wolf. Despite two-dimensional supporting characters and the disorienting juxtaposition of wacky plotting with lurid descriptions of violence, Ava earns readers' investment in this macabre procedural—she's a clever, compassionate, and resourceful protagonist with series-carrying potential. Mo Hayder fans will find much to admire.
