In a close knitted community in the north of England 15year old Isla Bell ran along Hadrian’s Wall and stumbles onto 4 bodies and a young boy seriously wounded. From this day on everything changes for all the people who were involved.

20 years later Isla is a forensic psychologist. She examines the brains of serial killers and finally she is able to examine the convicted killer of those people she once found. Her father, who caught this man, built his career on this case. He is the famous Eric Bell. Isla is married to Ramsey, the only survivor. But suddenly the killing starts again. But how can this be? The killer is behind bars for many years now. Is there a copycat? Or was there another killer who starts again now?

“The Killer on the Wall” is a dark thriller. Everyone who was involved in the crimes is traumatized. Isla waited 20 years and prepared herself to examine finally the man who killed people she knew and beaten her husband almost to dead. When the new victims begin to appear she does not know what to think. Her whole world begins to fall apart. The author does a great job showing this. But on the other hand nothing really happens for quite a long time. There is also Mina, a young police officer from London who moved to the north for personal reasons. Through her we see the police work on this case. She begins to look at the old case again and finds disturbing things. This is not as gripping as it sounds. The pace is very slow. In the last third the author offers suspect after suspect and twist after twist. But it is a bit too much. And the motive did not convince me.

The story itself is far from new but it is unique enough developed. The characters are ok, although I could not connect to them. This is my second book from Emma Kavanagh. I already had my problems with her writing style in the other book I read. I think the writing is aloof. I just could not connect to this book. I found my thoughts drifting apart while reading. It is probably my personal problem but I just don’t like the author’s writing style. It was an OK read but I think I would not choose a third book from the author. Her books are just not my cup of tea.

Very dark stuff going in this book.
The story told through three main characters, Isla and Ramsey married couple, he was sole survivor of the serial killer , she is the one that found him and other bodies. I didn't understand why Isla need it to interact with the murderer ( but that is the way to go back), she was trying to study why it happened!. Ramsey reading his fear and anguish when they found the new body was terrible.
But I loved the third voice the most detective Mina , originally from Iraq , raised in London. came to this village to prove herself , I liked her thought and calculations, she sounds very fresh new voice .

The book was dark , mainly when it was talking about evil being in the gene or environmental . the end was creepy , I started to suspect all the male characters surrounding Isla , but shocked at the end . My first book by Emma Kavanagh but hopefully not he last.

Well first of all, the blurb tells you everything you need to know about the basic plot, so no more from me on that score. However what the blurb can't tell you is how well written and engaging this book is. From a dramatic start with the discovery of 3 bodies and a badly injured 4th victim, to the jaw-dropping end via fear, doubt and mistrust in the middle.

The book is set in Northumberland, in the fictional village of Briganton, somewhere close to Hadrian's wall. Using the setting of a small close-knit community, serves to heighten the horror of what happens as everyone is under suspicion, and it's evident that the killer is one of their own. While Isla Bell may have discovered the bodies, it was her father now Detective Sergeant Eric Bell who was responsible for tracking down and arresting Heath McGowan for the murders.

Twenty years later, and Isla is now married to Ramsey, the badly injured 4th victim, who also lost his brother to the killer. Now working as a forensic psychologist Isla's is researching what makes a person do what they do, and her study has now brought her face to face with Heath McGowan.

This meeting proves fatal for some, as it's the catalyst for the killings to start again. The village is once more engulfed by dread and panic as the unthinkable happens. Still on the case is DS Eric Bell but he's now been joined by DC Mina Arian, an incomer from London. Mina has her own baggage, which makes her an interesting character, but she also has her own mind, and her theories about the killings are not well received by DS Bell.

The fact that Heath McGowan, was safely locked up inside when the new killings occur, throws up lots of questions about the initial investigation, questions that certain people are not willing to answer. So the quest is on, to discover the truth about the past, before more lives are lost in the present.

I enjoyed this book on several levels. Firstly, as a police procedural (my favourite), I enjoyed following the investigation and piecing the clues and mis-directions. I always enjoy the team relationships and dynamics, and when they are amiss, as in this case it adds to the complications. Secondly, the characters, they were all well drawn, even the minor characters, and this latter really added to the pathos, when that character was the partner of a murder victim - you'll know when you there. Thirdly, the setting - almost a character in itself. The brooding, almost claustrophobic pall that envelops the town when the killings start again is indicative of a close-knit community already bearing the scars from the past. Finally, there is an interesting sub thread running through that looks at the nature of families, via sibling and parent/child relationships.

The big question with any thriller is did I guess the who was the culprit? Well despite having someone firmly in mind, I'll have to admit no I didn't, which really added to the shock, when they were finally revealed. So overall a thoroughly engaging read, with a satisfactory outcome.

I received an ecopy via NetGalley to enable this review.

This one just didn't grab me I'm not sure why? I think I just didn't identify enough with the main character /premise to want to continue. It also all seemed just too bleak (which is odd given how much crime and thriller genre I get through in a year)

The Killer on the Wall is beautifully written with its isolated village charm. When a murder takes place in this small community twenty years ago, the town is in a state of shock. Isla comes across the murders, her father, the police in charge, comes in and solves the crime. Time passes and Isla is now married to one of the victims who survived and is now a forensic psychologist.

This is where the story starts picking up pace as Isla interviewers the original killer from twenty years ago, more murders take place spiraling her into a whodunit that will have consequences on this small close kit town.

The characters and narrative are beautifully written and the relationships within the story are well handled. The murders are interesting though at times there is a clinical sense to the proceedings that keeps the reader at arms length from the action. I found myself reading the story but not really getting involved with the story. As a side note, this could be due to reading a lot of American authors recently and finding myself in the midst of Welsh author, may have left me cultured shocked within its stylizing.

The cannon of suspects are varied and there is a sense of strong characterization within the text that help bring the story forward. The different points of view help lift this murder mystery above the norm and brings out the different aspects and ideologies found within this colorful cast of characters. At times, the book does get bogged down by the different personalities but Kavanagh has a real talent to ensure each person and character has their own individual voice.

The science and criminology is very well handled and a lot of work has gone into the forensic approach to the investigation. This gave the novel weight and help the reader understand the involvement that takes place in dealing with crime scenes and the overall psychology of the criminal mind. As interesting and informative as this is, at times it does slow the pace of the novel and gives Isla a cold façade that sometimes makes it hard for the reader to warm to.

Mina, on the other hand, is more three dimensional and with her young newbie eyes to the situation really help to open up the novel and engage the reader. This helped walk the reader through the town and gave it a human sensibility that sometimes is lacking through the rest of the proceedings.
The ending became a checklist of suspects that were checked off. When the main reveal occurs, it left the reader with a sense of er….ok. Believable but not terribly surprising.

Overall, this is an interesting read that I had difficulty fully engaging in. I loved a lot of the aspects of the novel and Kavanagh has a beautiful way of writing but personally, I never felt fully involved with the story. This is a four star read and I feel that a lot of readers will totally be gripped by this author’s style. Solid read but I couldn’t really warm to it.

I really enjoyed this book - the close community setting and cold season really adds to the atmosphere in this serial killer thriller, and the two main narrations are strong female characters who are easy to get behind and whose points of view are really interesting. We sometimes see events from secondary characters' perspectives, and the suspicions are built upon gradually throughout the plot and with good reasoning. This makes the reveal at the end all the more surprising and hard to believe (in the sense that it's a real twist that you may not see coming). Without giving away any spoilers, I did wonder if readers may feel a bit cheated at the end because of this, but I only felt like this for a fleeting moment. The way Kavanagh has developed the characters and the theoretical insights they bring to the crime case really helps us to see that the outcome makes sense. The fact that all of the characters are very well written, and the plot develops with great suspense, makes this book hard to put down!

This is a psychological thriller which is set in a small village where everyone knows everyone. Twenty years before the main events in this book a serial killer went on a spree and left bodies against Hadrian's Wall, and everyone was shocked when the killer was found and arrested, as everyone knew him. So now, twenty years later the killer is still in jail, yet the murders have started up again.

This book gripped me with a very strong beginning, which was gruesome and really helped set the scene for later on in the novel. I found that the book took a bit of a dip after that though, as I found my attention drifting away, and I even considered just giving it up and putting it down. I'm glad I stuck with it though, as after the problematic start, this book really pulled me in. It's rare that a book can chill me and spook me to the extent that this one did. It left me feeling so uneasy as I began to suspect someone from very early on. I wasn't sure of my guess until towards the end, though it did turn out that my guess was correct. I didn't mind that I guessed correctly so early on, as this book created an environment which left me forever unsure of everyone, and which left me feeling disturbed and scared for several of the characters at several points.

I think one of the strongest aspects of this book is that it is told in multiple points of view. This is done so effectively, and really gives the reader a chance to get to know most of the village from several different perspectives. I felt like these people I was reading about were real, that I could actually be living in this place as I believed in these characters and also felt like I knew the characters so well.

I can't wait to check out more books by this author. If you don't mind reading a book where the killer is somewhat obvious, yet at the same time is atmospheric and chilling, then I highly recommend you give this book a read.

Gripping from the start, this page-turner crime thriller doesn't disappoint. The opening line: “It began with the bodies” is a perfect introduction to the action past and present, with a fresh wave of identical murders following on from the ones that happened 20 years ago. Who is doing the killing now? Are they dealing with an accomplice linked to the original culprit (now safely behind bars), or maybe a copycat killer?

Isla Bell was only 15 years old when she witnessed the bodies stacked against Hadrian's Wall in the small, rural town of Briganton, a place where everybody knows one another, and also knew the convicted murderer. They assumed it was history, until history starts to repeat itself. Now a forensic psychologist, specialising in researching the minds of psychopaths, Isla is drawn into a new web of terror striking at the heart of this close-knit community, particularly close to home for her.

We meet Mina (my favourite character), a police officer and outsider newcomer with secrets of her own, ready to make her mark on the safekeeping of the citizens. Her efforts to nail down the criminal and her determination to press past the obvious leads to conflict with senior officers, especially with Eric Bell, Isla's heroic Superintendent father, who caught the original culprit.

Though slow in places, in keeping with the hit and miss nature of police investigations, this novel gradually picks up pace as the denouement draws nigh. It kept me guessing to the final pages, with endless twists and turns cleverly executed by the author, leading to a rattling, breathless finish. This is the first book I've read by Emma Kavanagh but it definitely won't be the last. Highly recommended.

Fifteen year old Isla Bell is catapulted to adulthood when she discovers three bodies lined up against Hadrian's Wall. Her father is the lead police officer on the case and a man is put away for life. Twenty years later and Isla is now a criminal psychologist working on a study of psychopaths using MRI scans of their brains. Happily married to her teenage sweetheart and fulfilled in work at the local university Isla is only slightly worried when she has to include 'The Killer on the Wall' as part of her study. Then a local woman goes missing and her body is found propped against the wall...just coincidence?

At the heart of this book is a really simple story, did the police get the right man twenty years ago? I particularly liked all the references to brain studies about psychopaths and the ability of some with psychopathic tendencies to be able to mask and channel - not all psychopaths are serial killers. However I felt the plot got a little hysterical towards the end, too many killings. The perpetrator was easy to spot from the first few pages so the denouement didn't really surprise but the side-story about the policeman keen to solve a case at any cost was handled well. The book was entertaining but not particularly memorable.

great read and easy to follow story line look forward to reading more from this author.

ARC received from: Netgalley

Rating: 3.5*

One-Sentence Summary: A serial killer returns to Hadrian's wall

Review: I've been a big fan of Emma Kavanagh's previous thrillers and always look forward to getting my hands on her new novel once a year.

Like in Kavanagh's previous novels, you get the story from multiple POVs, the two main ones being that of Isla Bell who found the original bodies as a child and grew up to be a psychologist studying serial killers. The second is that of a police detective, new to the area and determined to discover the truth and what went wrong with the original investigation. Seeing the investigation from these two strong but different women gave differing perspectives on the crimes and who might have done it.

However, unfortunately, overall The Killer On The Wall didn't quite do it for me. It was slow going for the first two-thirds of the novel and therefore took me about a month to get through on and off. The last third is where the pace picks up and you start questioning everything you thought you knew in terms of the whodunnit element but even at the very end I feel like a certain amount of closure is missing and you and Isla are left without a satisfying answer as to why the serial killer killed the people (s)he did.

One of the best thrillers I have read!

This book had everything that I look for in a murder mystery and I absolutely loved it.

Isla Bell is 15 when she discovers three bodies propped up against Hadrian’s Wall. The killer is quickly caught and jailed for life thanks mainly to Isla’s father, Detective Sergeant Eric Bell.

The story begins 20 years later. Isla is now happily married to Ramsey, whose brother, Zach, was one of the original victims, but has never been able to escape from her harrowing memories and has decided to make a career in forensic psychology at the local university. She is particularly interested in the brain patterns of psychopaths and has entered into an agreement with the convicted murderer, Heath McGowan, to conduct an MIR scan on his brain to try to understand what makes these people do what they do.

Suddenly, another murder is committed in exactly the same way and the body is left propped up on Hadrian’s wall and then another and another and all the nightmares from 20 years ago come back to haunt the residents who have lived through this already. The original murderer is in prison so is this a copycat or accomplice of Heath McGowan or, even worse, has the wrong man been accused and convicted?

This book was a real page-turner. You get so involved in what is happening and can’t wait to know the outcome whilst at the same time not wanting to know because that means the book is finished. All the characters are well-defined and believable and I particularly enjoyed the style of writing. Some of the conversations are spoken but also the author has a very clever way of also writing down people’s thoughts which add to the atmosphere of the book.

Additionally, you are kept guessing all the way through as to the identity of the murderer. I kept veering from one person to another but never actually guessed who it was despite realising as soon as the murderer was made known that it was so obvious in many ways.

The only good thing about finishing this book is that I have discovered that the author has already written three previous ones so I will be looking to read these in the not too distant future.

Dexter

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

Enjoyed it despite the fact that I didn't read it all at once.

Picturesque countryside marred by death, darkness and danger. This book will have you checking the closets and maybe even sleeping with the light on.
The characters are a great bunch. While Isla is the lead I found myself liking plucky Mina and her drive for answers and truth. The descriptions as so vivid you can feel the chill in the air as it wraps around you and pulls you into the pages of the story.
The writing leads you on a journey filled with clues and mystery as the story unravels, but are you right? Can you catch the Killer? Or will you be lead along the wall?
Grab this book for a weekend sleuthing between the pages. Prepare to think yourself in to knots as you try to figure it out. More twists and turns than a roller coaster.

20 years ago Isla Bell stumbles on a horrific scene - three bodies propped against Hadrian's​ Wall. More killings follow and it's is Eric Bell, father of Isla that catches the killer. He becomes the hero of Briganton, the town terrorised by the murders. Isla grows up to marry Ramsey, the only survivor of The Killer on the Wall and become an authority on forensic psychology. And her latest subject is the killer her father caught, Heath McGowan. But despite him been safely behind bars the killings begin again.....

Bleak and tense this book grabbed me in the first few pages. It has to be said the grip lessened for awhile, the book does hit a lull but it's definitely worth sticking with. There are a few good red herrings to contend with if you're like me and try and work it out - which if you're like me you'll really enjoy!


I received this novel from Netgalley for an unbiased review.

I did enjoy the story, but I had a hard time not to let my mind wandering while reading. This was in no way the fault of the authors writing, but this book just didn’t grip me like I would have expected.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley and Random House UK!

Twenty years ago fifteen year old Isla Bell went for an early morning run and found four bodies propped up against Hadrian's Wall. Three of the bodies were dead - murdered - but the fourth victim survived and is now Isla's husband. Her father, a DS at the time, solved the case and the "Killer on the Wall" as he became knows has been in prison ever since but has never said why he killed his victims. Isla is now a psychologist and conducting research into serial killers and the "Killer on the Wall" has agreed to take part in her research. Now another murder has occurred in the village and the body has been propped up against Hadrian's Wall. Is it a copycat killer? Did the "Killer on the Wall" have an unknown accomplice? Is the wrong person in prison? Great read from start to finish - couldn't put it down. Look forward to more from this author.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and Emma Kavanagh for the opportunity to read and review this book.

CSI with a real twist! Thrilling book from an author that I will definitely will read more since she really knows her way in the forensics. Absolutely well written and the details are amazing, making you live it like a tv episode. brilliant.

Killer on the wall review

I should never read other people's reviews before forming my own opinion. On this occasion I have to admit I did glimpse a few - my excuse, I don't usually read thrillers so I did.
Some reviewers were disappointed in the plot however I was gripped by this story finding the details of small village life in Northumbria to be realistic and the idea of small town infamy well described.
I loved it, and unlike many reviewers certainly did not guess the outcome - I didn't have any suspects at the halfway mark and I'm usually irritatingly accurate in guessing plot developments and culprits from the first few minutes of crime dramas.
I thought the characters were robust, the conversations and situations uncontrived and the pace appropriate. I was however, disturbed by location inaccuracies such as the University of Northumberland apparently being situated in view of Carlisle. I understand the need to make up a place for such horror to have occurred but I cannot forgive the lack of research that denies The University of Northumbria its proper title and accurate geographical position. Add to this the stunning lack of historical reference to The wall itself, it is one of the main characters it deserves more consideration and respect within the story. For a piece set in the north these factors could be make or break for a conscientious reader.
All that said this is a well written and nicely paced story, layers of the narrative emerge in a way that fed my curiosity without the frustration of some whodunnits, and Any incredulity that the main characters are all so intertwined is completely understandable given the location and population density of the area. I will read more from Emma kavanagh.

Isla Bell was just a teenager when she discovered the bodies by Hadrian's Wall whilst out for a morning run. The hunt and arrest of the killer made her policeman father's career and set her on a path as a criminal psychologist with a particular interest in psychopaths. When she is studying 'The Killer on the Wall' she begins to have doubt that they have the right man- a fact that is demonstrated when the killer strikes again.

Mina is a young police officer far from home and finds herself in the middle of this confusing case.

Emma Kavangh captures the atmosphere of a village under siege. It kept me guessing- who was the killer . I guessed wrong a number of times! I loved Mina- I thought she was a really likeable well rounded character & would love to read more about her.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read & review this book. A definite five stars from me.