Thank you #netgalley #hachetteaustralia #ruthmciver for the arc of this book.

Erin Sloane was sixteen when high school senior Andre Villiers was murdered by his friends. Five people went into the woods that night, only three came out.

It's been twenty years since that night and Erin has been asked to write a story for her local paper about Andre's death. As she spends time interviewing people, her own repressed memories start to emerge. By digging into the past she starts to unravel what really happened that night, and realises just how far people will go to keep the truth hidden.

This book was very dark and twisted, dealing with a lot of trigger warnings including drug use, rape, abuse and satanism.
There were a lot of POVs which started to make things a bit confusing. This was not helped by some pacing issues and focus shifting without warning.

This wasn't a bad book by any means, it just wasn't really for me.

Oh god, what a page turner this book was. Such a heavy read but I couldn't tear myself away from the book while I was reading it and finished it in a couple of sittings. Definitely recommend to people who love Tana french;s books.

The pace of the book was a bit all over the place. It seemed to me that the story got lost in areas. The first half was really good but it got lost in the second half. It still held my interest but I have to say I wasnt thrilled by it.

Once you read it you can’t unread it.

‘Mothers, fathers hide your daughters…’ These are the words of an old song. But they kept coming to mind while I was reading I Shot The Devil.

The book is all about DYSFUNCTIONAL. It is about dysfunctional families and failing systems, ignorant communities and social norm that kills rather than nourishes.

I Shot The Devil is not about shooting and definietely not about The Devil in biblical sense. It is about old secrets that do not want to die. It is about truth that noone wants to know about. It is about lives ruined beyond repair by those who were supposed to protect, love and nourish.

A group of teenages seeking thrills everywhere they can. When it is not enough they seek some more. They know no boundaries, no routine, no ‘no’ and no parental control. They are rebels without a cause causing injuries to their bodies and souls.

These teenagers grow up into adults covered in scars physical and mental. Erin Sloane, star of the school, uncronwed home coming queen of dysfunctional is coming back to town. She needs to dig the hill of secrets and lies to get The Story, to get herself a byline that will keep her afloat and take her to bigger and brighter things. Howeve, this story is her story. It is too personal and too dangerous to go back to.

It does not matter who actually shot whom. It does not even matter who is the devil in this story. I Shot The Devil is one scary book. It is scary for parents for we do not want our kids to suffer all of things characters in this book go through. It is scary for teenagers as they know just too well that all these truths are real.

The voice, the dynamics, the characters. They all make for one scary, suspensful and interesting read.

I Shot the Devil by Ruth McIver was the winner of the 2018 Richelle Prize for emerging writers. Entrants must submit the first three chapters of their work and a synopsis of the rest. While the prologue of this book is a little disjointed and confusing, just the first chapter has enough style and hooks to keep readers going. And the whole book does not disappoint.
Erin Sloane is a true crime journalist working for a small New York publication called Inside Island. She is asked by her editor to write a story about the Southland Three – three teenagers involved in some killings that happened on Long Island fourteen years before. One teenager was beaten to death in an apparent satanic ritual by four others, the ringleader known as Ricky Hell, was then shot by the police. Only what her editor does not know, and what Erin does not reveal to her immediately, is that while she was not there she was intimately involved in a number of the players in that drama. So that going back to investigate will require Erin to face many of the demons from her past.
This setup is reminiscent of Gillian Flynn’s debut Sharp Objects – a journalist having to confront the darkness in her past while investigating both current and past crimes. But that is as far as the comparison’s go. McIver has her own style and sensibility that she brings to the story. For example
I felt the sense of snow in the air, the same way you anticipate a bone breaking.
The fact that the plot involves goth, satan worshipping teenagers in the 90s and police corruption helps set the scene. This milieu is thrown into sharp relief when Erin travels to the glitzy, surface brightness of Florida for the final third of the book.
Erin herself is a damaged. She carries the wounds of her childhood and teenagerhood, which included the death of her mother and sister and the descent of her cop father. She is self-medicating and in some ways self-destructive but also has a stubborn will to get to the truth of the killings that partially shaped her life even where this means putting herself in the line of fire. Her first person narrative is broken up by her own memoir and the highly unreliable, more impressionistic ramblings of one of the perpetrators of the original crime. This second comes across as a slightly contrived device to give Erin clues that she could not have found on her own but suspect enough to not necessarily give her the solution to the puzzle.
Erin investigates her way through a well-constructed plot that also brings in a separate but related cold case of kidnapped children. Only the some of the final twists, while wrapping things up, sit a little jarringly with the rest of the narrative. But for the most part this is a taut noir thriller from an exciting new voice in Australian crime fiction.

I Shot The Devil is a dark and twisty thriller involving murder, violence and abuse.

Were they druggie, metalhead teenagers just having fun in the woods, whatever could go wrong?

Two boys are killed in what appeared be a satanic cult on Halloween night. Did the devil visit the woods that night? Satanic Cult leader Ricky Hells was charged with murder and the case closed.

Twenty years later, Erin Sloane our messed up and fearless protagonist is a true crime reporter and her editor Denise wants her to dig up an old investigation called The Southport Three, which involved murders in Erin’s hometown back in 1994. What Denise doesn’t know is that the teenagers murdered all knew Erin. This could be Erin’s biggest story but will she be able to relive the past?

This book will have you turning the pages to find out what happened that fateful night, a great read but I found keeping track of all the characters was intense at times.

Ever thankful I grew up in my life and not this one!

A wayward girl gets involved with some mixed up people and thinks their lifestyle of drugs, sex and metal is inviting. One night while partying two of the boys in her group are murdered. Jump forward a few years and she is now a journalist (with a definite drinking problem) and on the suggestion of her editor she sets out to unravel the mystery of her past.

This one is not for the faint - there is underage sex, grooming, statutory rape, drinking, drugs, self harm, child neglect, murder, dirty cops, and more. At the heart of this book though is a cracker of a mystery and is a definite page turner.

This book was interesting. It covered topics that I wasn't expecting and found intriguing. However, it seemed to lack a bit of depth and the ending fell a bit flat for me.

Overall it was an enjoyable book to read.

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I Shot The Devil is a dark story about a crime committed (murder) when Erin Sloane and her friends were teenagers, quite a few of the characters in the book are violent and have twisted backgrounds and there is a lot of description of sex, drugs and violence.

The book starts off very strong, and right from page one you are bought into the dark world of the characters of this book, which I really liked, I liked that it was fast paced from go to woe… it starts fast and does not slow down.

I unfortunately found the first half of the book confusing at times, I was not sure if a character was saying something, or thinking something. Maybe its just me, but I often found myself thinking “wait a minute, what?, what is going on?” or simply just “Huh?” and I was having to re-read bits to make sense of what was going on but that did lessen as I read further into the book.

I enjoyed the book the whole way through, I found it to be a real page turner and I do recommend it to people who are after a dark, fast read.

This was an interesting but weird read. Some parts of the story are brilliant, really setting the scene for a nail-biting thriller, but the pacing & crazy parts of the story then take over & it's ruined.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Hatchette Australia and the author, Ruth McIver, for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of I Shot The Devil in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I thought this book provided a good, easy to follow read. The storyline was imaginative and the characters were intriguing. Not a bad debut for this author.
Worth a read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hachette Australia for a kindle version of this book to review.

Erin is a journalist who is asked to dig up and find more information for a story on the Southport Three....a thrill kill murder that happened twenty years previously. Five high school students had gone into the local woods, amongst talk of satanic worship and drug use, however only three come out. The only problem is that Erin is a little too close to this story.....these were her friends and she had also been there herself that night.

I’m not really sure what to say about this book, however I do have to say that I don’t think I got the most out of the book reading it as an ebook. There are many characters, almost all of whom are linked in some way. I don’t find ebooks the most user friendly when it comes to trying to flip backwards to re-read something, like it is with physical books where (I, at least) have some sense of how far to go back to re-read a paragraph or page. As such, I found this book incredibly confusing.

I also found the writing a little confusing at times, as it was sometimes difficult to tell who was talking (or even if they were thinking rather than talking!) and whether the event was happening in the past or present. Sometimes it felt a little like I was reading a brain dump of information and where some of the linking of the scenes was missing.

I do think the bare bones of the story were interesting, however the execution I found difficult to follow. I also couldn’t quite get any real sense of Erin’s character and what and why she was doing the things she did, or what motivated her.

All in all I would have to say that this was not the most satisfying read, however do acknowledge that this could have been a much better experience had I read it in the format of a physical book that I could flip backwards and forwards to easily re-read sections. As this did come down to my reading preferences somewhat, I’m rounding up (I’m normally stingy and round down 😂) to ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5.

Always exciting to read the new book by the winner of the Richell Prize! I flew through this book in a just a few sittings. It has all the elements of a fast-paced contemporary murder-mystery, and is filled with nostalgia and the strange mid-life haunting that comes with placing an eye in the past. Erin is a fierce and dedicated lead character, and her story is one of lies, secrets, and skewed perceptions. This is also not for the squeamish! Comes with an absolute stunning cover treatment. The artwork and the intriguing title will captive and draw the buyer. Also a very easy hand sell. Thanks for the opportunity to read!

This is a complicated, compelling and well-executed book. I found myself completely gripped by the unfolding story, and it truly surprised me by its twists throughout. This is an important read for Aussie crime aficionados, truly a read you won't regret.

This book has all the ingredients of a fantastic, page-flipping thriller, the kind of book that makes you frantic to finish because you just want to find out what happens. There's intrigue, abuse, teenage mistakes, murder, and conspiracy, all headed by a strong but damaged protagonist who makes her own way through the mire of her past. There's a lot of twists and a strong feeling of anticipation that the book builds as to what will happen, and the mystery surrounding the crimes that have occurred is also very intense.

With that being said, this book does have issues. It feels like a series of increasingly wild things begin to happen and that the essence of the story gets lost in an attempt to thrill, and the main character makes a lot of choices that leave the reader wondering what her true nature is. While this can be successfully used as a device sometimes, in this book the logic behind some of those choices isn't divulged, and so we are left wondering as to what is out of character and what is not.

The first half of this story is tight and fast-paced, a real gem of a thriller, but that is somewhat lost in the second half. That's not to say it was bad, because there are aspects of it that still keep you hooked, and the investment in the story from the first part is still very much present. You have to really pay attention to character names and relationships, which makes it a fairly dense thriller as well (also not a bad thing- the more involved the better!). I just feel like the action in the latter half could have been toned down a little, and it would have been an easy four stars. Still, well worth a read, especially if mysteries and satanic cults are your thing!