A chilling look at stranger danger.

Fully review at the attached link.

Three missing children and a creepy man who calls himself the bone collector form the centre of this chilling debut novel by Fiona Cummins. I will not go too deeply into the storyline for fear of giving away spoilers, only to say that the author has done a great job in bringing a child's worst nightmares to life in her creation of a disturbed serial killer, who works tirelessly to continue the family tradition of collecting human skeletons for the ossuary he inherited from his father. Rattle, rattle, there are bones in the cellar! The more unusual the better – this is the reason he selects victims with rare bone disorders or deformities that would make a fascinating addition to his collection. Young Jakey, who suffers from the rare disease fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, is a perfect target. As his muscles, tendons and ligaments slowly turn into bone, his skeleton becomes a more and more attractive collector’s piece for our man. The only problem is that Jakey is still alive, but that has never been an obstacle for the bone collector.

With a thread of menace and darkness running throughout the novel, the storyline played out in front of my eyes in sepia colours with wisps of mist wafting through black streets and wrapping itself around houses and trees, some of its characters stepping straight out of a “Carnivale” type nightmare bordering on the bizarre. The virtual leap into the bone collector’s lair was reminiscent of my worst childhood visions of the bogey man hiding under my bed at night, waiting to chop off any body part that dared to protrude from the safety of my blanket. Creepy! But whilst the details skirted the fine line of "too much information", Cummins managed to pull back before overstepping the mark that would deposit this book into the "horror" instead of "murder / mystery" genre. In fact, I thought her characterisation of the mentally ill bone collector was very well executed, which lent substance to the story rather than just shock factor.

Etta Fitzroy as lead detective is an enigmatic and sympathetic protagonist, who made up for all the other -generally rather unlikeable – characters, and I can see her forming the centrepiece of future novels. True to form, she has all the flaws and tortured mind that make for an interesting fictional detective violating rules and constraints in order to get the job done and to see justice served. I struggled a bit to bond with any of the other characters, though the battles Jakey’s parents face every day in raising a child with disabilities are well drawn. Apart from a few loose threads that I felt needed tying up, the novel flowed well, though some readers may find the ending unsatisfying. I actually thought it was a fitting finale, keeping up the general theme of darkness and menace until the very end. All in all, a promising new voice in crime fiction and potentially the start of a new series featuring an interesting female detective with many more cases to solve. Definitely worth checking out!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

The quotes about this book on the cover give readers a clue about what to expect. Indeed, even I found it kinda creepy. And I read a lot of books about psychopaths and serial killers. And lawyers. :-)

Likening the 'baddie' of Rattle to Hannibal Lecter I assumed to be a bit of a marketing ploy, but... there's a cold clinical psychopathy to the (so called) Bone Collector in Rattle that's reminiscent to the cunningly smart and seemingly sane consumer of human brains.

(I insert blurb here)

We're introduced to the baddie, aka the Bone Collector at the beginning of the book. So it's less about us trying to work out whodunnit, rather than the usual race against time to save children caught up in our psychopath's twisted fascination with bones and bone structures, or as it's described...

... killing sprees born of a desire to preserve and protect medical rarities. p 166

In some ways this novel is as much about the lives of some of our main characters as it is about the kidnappings and murder/s.

Jakey's father, Erdman is teetering on the edge when we meet him and before Jakey goes missing. His marriage is a shambles and full of blame and recrimination, and he's lost his job. It feels as if there's little point and - other than the love of his son - he sees little meaning in his life. And Etta's struggling with her own demons. Her marriage is also under some strain and we soon learn that she's carrying around a bit of baggage - both personal and professional.

We spent a lot of time in the heads of Erdman, Etta and the Bone Collector, as well as Jakey and Clara. It's hard not to worry about the fate of the children and easy to become engaged in the well-paced plot.

Like another novel I recently read I paused for a moment during this to check it WAS the first in the series as there are a lot of references to Etta's state of mind and a previous case. The details eventually unfold and I enjoyed this book, but it was a little disjointed in parts, or the editing perhaps a little patchy.

I should flag (again) this book is a little confronting at times as there are some references to the way in which the Bone Collector plans to strip a child's bones for example; not to mention his almost-clinical lack of empathy.

Cummins provides a lot of scientific and medical detail about the human body, bones and skeletal malformations through the Bone Collector. We're also however, privy to the challenges his victims and their families face (because of these conditions) which adds texture and complexity to the plot.

Although we expect the usual final confrontation where our protagonists lives are put at risk, this ends a little differently. I can't say too much but while there's some closure, readers are left hanging a little. And of course it opens the door for more in the series...