Wow!  This was a well crafted novel which kept the reader guessing. I absolutely loved it. If you enjoy crime fiction this book will tick all the boxes.

Book blurb...

The nation is gripped by the infamous 'Ragdoll Killer'. Your friends, your family and your neighbours are all talking about it

A body is discovered with the dismembered parts of six victims stitched together like a puppet, nicknamed by the press as the 'ragdoll'.

Assigned to the shocking case are Detective William 'Wolf' Fawkes, recently reinstated to the London Met, and his former partner Detective Emily Baxter.

The 'Ragdoll Killer' taunts the police by releasing a list of names to the media, and the dates on which he intends to murder them.

With six people to save, can Fawkes and Baxter catch a killer when the world is watching their every move?

My thoughts…

I enjoyed this story, even though it was tough to get past the thought of a killer stitching body parts of different victims together.  (Yes, even for me!) The Ragdoll Killer was ingenious, the plot unique, especially the methods the killer uses when attempting to kill the victims on his list.

I felt for the main character, Detective Fawkes ‘Wolf’, who, as well as being #6 on the list was personally involved in preventing the deaths of others on the list.

This story also explores what can happen when the press gets too involved and publicises a murderer’s intentions step by step.

Very ingenious plotting by the author, well done.

This is quite different to what I normally read but I absolutely loved it. A page turner for sure, lots of gory parts (which makes it different from what I normally read) but I loved the suspense and the thrill of the read. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and can't wait to read more from this author. A great read.

A  really good read - as soon as the crime happened you were taken along for the ride with lots of twists and turns. I look forward to reading Daniel Coles next novel and hopefully at some time in the future there will be another case involving Wolf.

Ragdoll is definitely a ripping yarn and then some, with plot twists throughout keeping you guessing precisely where the story is going and exactly how it will end. 
I found this story both satisfying and enthralling, as well as very difficult to put down. The characters are well developed and Daniel Cole has done an excellent job of showing the increasing stress they are under as the story progresses and the bodies mount up. This is a fantastic effort as a debut novel. More from this author please!

I was looking forward to reading this – the reviews and the write-ups were glowing.  It had all the ingredients – a particularly nasty serial killer, a damaged cop with a past, another cop with ambition, a publicity-hungry journo (who just happens to be the former wife of the damaged cop!) and a rookie detective determined to prove himself.
So why didn’t this book grab me?  Well, a fast-moving book can be fun, and this was certainly non-stop action, but, in my opinion, it didn’t stay in one place long enough to mean anything.  The action moved round for place to place, from person to person and from viewpoint to viewpoint far too quickly to build any rapport with any of the characters or to get a meaningful sense of what was going on.  Basically, it was just too “bitsy” to make a coherent whole.  I believe the novel was originally written as a TV screenplay.  Perhaps it would have worked as a TV show, but I don’t think it was adapted well enough to be a novel.
I didn’t find much character development, except for young Edmunds – he shows signs of changing and maturing. The others seem to me to be merely stereotypes.
It’s pretty gory, which you’d expect in a story about a serial killer, so that didn’t bother me much – I just skipped the gory bits! It was harder to cope with the poor writing and poor character development. And one little niggle – Detective Baxter? Detective Fawkes? I thought this was supposed to be Scotland Yard, not an American police story!
Many reviewers have said they found they couldn’t put this book down; I’m afraid I found it all too easy to put down and it was quite a challenge to  continue reading! 
Thank you to Netgalley for a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Rag Doll      Daniel Cole
LIKED:
While the concept of several victims' dismembered body-parts cobbled together to form a corpse is not new (e.g The Jigsaw Man), the title of this page-turner effectively suggests not only something handmade from throw-away remnants, but also a toy / play / rag doll online games, floppiness / lifelessness. It sets up reader expectations and foreshadows the plot manipulations well.

The killer's list 'race against time' tension carried me along despite doubts about the overly-damaged detective nicknamed Wolf (an acronym that suggests 'predator'),.and indignation that the reason for one listed potential victim's selection is  'inexperience'.
 

I was entertained by the black humour and witty one liners.

The plausible rounded characters Detective Emily Baxter and recent transfer Edmund's sustained interest and were believable, grounded foils,

DISLIKED:
The aspects of the central character,
The Prologue's violence, giving the relevant backstory, certainly startles and hooks the reader. It also somewhat implausibly introduces William Oliver Layton Fawkes (Wolf) as a self-appointed avenger. In a court of law he viciously attacks (with intent to kill) the accused, in an immediate emotional response to the jury's not guilty verdict. 
Four years later, reinstated and supposedly rehabilitated, his professional ethics remain suspect. There is a dislocation between his ruthless, obsessive behaviour in the name of protecting the community, and upholding laws/boundaries society has devised in the name of justice. However the portrayal of Wolf goes beyond the clever but  flawed, complicated policeman striving to exert good over evil within the framework of the law. He is driven by determination and a blind inner rage which makes him a self-destructive time bomb. Detective Sergeant William Oliver Layton Fawkes comes across as an impulsive antihero who needs more author tweaking to make his actions and reactions plausible.

Very good read. Interesting characters. Kept me guessing. Would recommend.

I cannot recommend this enough. Wolf may never be my book boyfriend, he is too moody and cranky. It is the story that grips to the end. It is intelligent, sneaky and surprising. It is not just about a case, the reader and everyone in the story will be surprised. 

A story worth a read by all adults craving for a good mystery suspense.

Frequent readers of crime fiction tend to be over some plot element or standard form or another. It's hard to avoid getting a little jaded when a particular structure shows up time and time again - and in my case it's been serial killers for sometime now. Which does at least mean that it's a discomfortingly nice surprise when you come across an interesting twist on the tired old form.

Which, of course means, that you've taken a punt on something with a blurb that's guaranteed to be off-putting. For this reader there was something about the author's bio and the blurb of RAGDOLL that hinted at something out of the ordinary. Mercifully there didn't seem to be slightest indication (nor eventuality) that time would be spent in the killer's head, whilst they explained their twisted little justifications ad infinitum. Whatever it was that made me pick up RAGDOLL though, thank goodness it was there. This is a brilliant book, and I'm acutely aware how dodgy that sounds, what with the whole serial killer thing and all.

That's not to say that there's not a hefty serving of ick about the discovery of dismembered human remains, sewn together and strung up like a puppet. Hence the "Ragdoll Killer" nomenclature from the press. 

That's not to say that there's not a stressed, fragile, and flawed central character. In fact Detective Wolf Fawkes raises each of those to a new high, and adds highly suspect into the bargain. His offsider is the only person who can work with him for a whole heap of complicated, nuanced or blazingly obvious reasons.

And it's definitely not to say that there's not quite a headliner to the whole serial killer plot - what with a list of intended victims, and the dates of their deaths delivered straight into the hands of a slightly less than eager member of the press - she being the ex-wife of Wolf Fawkes and all. His is, after all, the last name on the list and the divorce wasn't that acrimonious.

RAGDOLL has a beautifully twisted storyline, peopled with wonderfully flawed human beings, delivered a break-neck pace. There's enough surprising twists and turns to the plot elements to allow the standard clichés - like the tension with upper echelons, and the difficulties in forming working partnerships - play out against suspicion and the sheer weirdness of having a list of victims who the police are desperately trying to identify and protect. Then there's the complication of connecting the dots between them. What do a series of seemingly random killings have to do with each other, and does that answer provide even the vaguest hint about a killer who is resourceful, cunning and very deadly.

It's been a while since finishing a debut book made me mildly miffed I'd have to wait a while for the second in the series. Particularly as the end of RAGDOLL does not in anyway telegraph where a second might be heading, let alone starting out. Which statement is trying to be deliberately tantalising because really this is a debut book everyone should be reading - serial killer allergy or not.

Ragdoll is Daniel Cole’s first novel and it started life as a screenplay. Perhaps that’s where the problem lay a little for me. I mean, don’t get me wrong… I enjoyed this book, but I know many have LOVED it. And I didn’t. I think the book had great potential, but it felt like we were in people’s heads when we shouldn’t have been and timing and elements (on occasion) seemed bit confusing.

(I insert the blurb here)

The book opens in a courtroom with Detective William Oliver Layton-Fawkes (WOLF) attacking a man after he's found not guilty of killing and cremating 27 teenage prostitutes.

We're in the head of one of the jurors when it happens, but suddenly move to Wolf's as he 'tastes blood' when tackled.

We then leap forward in time and - perhaps I'm thick - as I found it a little confusing as we're drip-fed information about Wolf for some time. Eventually we learn he did some time in a psych ward before returning to the police force. (And if that seems improbable - without offering up any spoilers - he came back by popular demand. An encore of sorts, if you like. ;-) )

Wolf, Emily Baxter and her new probationer Edmunds are given the case of the stitched-together body and tasked with identifying those who died so the doll could live. Well, not live... but you know what I mean!

However, they're sidetracked as Wolf's ex-wife (and journalist) receives a package from the killer with a list of who's next.

We soon learn the Ragdoll case has ties to the Cremation Killer and Wolf's on the killer's hit list. And there's the proverbial race against time as the detectives try to save each of the intended victims.

All of that was enjoyable, but... there are leaps in time (and continuity) that plagued the last part of the novel (for me). Of course there's meant to be an element of confusion as we try to separate the goodies from the baddies, and I have no problem with 'grey' in my reading. However... it (occasionally) felt a little all over the place (structurally) and seemed to end quite abruptly.

I wondered on more than a few occasions if bits had been cut and pasted as I kept thinking I was missing some backstory... 'why does Chambers walk with a limp?' and comments about Wolf leading Baxter on 'for years', for example. I know structural edits usually pick up on those types of issues so wondered if the novel needed a little more work. Of course, it also could have just been me!

But... having said all of that, I did enjoy this book for the most part and kept turning the pages, needing to know what was next.

Wow. For a first book this was amazing!  I think the writing is still a little.. not quite polished, but the story was brilliant!  Good characters too - I hope we are going to see more of them!

I wanted to read faster and faster, but I didn't want it to be over, either. A very gripping, very enjoyable read.

4.5★s

The recently reinstated Detective William Fawkes (known as Wolf by all) was thrust into what the media dubbed the Ragdoll murder – a “body” made up of six different body parts. The killer had dismembered his victims, roughly sewing them together to make one – a “ragdoll”. But that wasn’t the worst of it… 

Wolf’s ex-partner Detective Emily Baxter and her offsider, Detective Alex Edmunds worked the case, alongside Wolf and other team members. Finding who the six victims were was a priority; but it was when a list of names was released to the media - their murder dates written neatly alongside, that the race was on. Knowing they had to protect the people on the list at all cost meant the force was stretched to the limit. And in the meantime, Wolf was struggling – his temper; never the best to control – was on show often. Was Wolf losing control of the situation? Would the killer better the police? Not on Wolf and his diligent team’s watch – of that he was determined!

Ragdoll is the debut novel by Daniel Cole and wow! The pace is electric; the tension gripping. The pages seemed to turn themselves – and I am so pleased to know this is book #1 in the new Detective William Fawkes series. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy to read and review.

The premise and plot of this novel is what drew me into reading it, and certainly had me intrigued while I wondered who was behind the murders. It is a very fascinating concept and should reel you in quickly.

When a body is found with various parts of six people stitched together like a 'ragdoll', detectives William (Wolf) Fawkes and Emily Baxter are assigned to solve the case. Wolf's past working for a separate trial is linked to this case, and his ex-wife Andrea is working as a reportor when she receives a list of names and dates that the killer plans on taking as their next targets. Wolf and Emily must determine a way to save the people on the list from being murdered in the future, and find out who is responsible.

In the prologue, the readers learn of Wolf's questionable past when he worked for a different case. I must admit I was a bit confused by the prologue and had to read over it to understand. I was glad the events that took place are discussed quickly as I read on, because otherwise I might not have understood what really happened.

The humour of the detectives is great and distracted me from the horrifying crime. This is the strongest point of the book. It also sets a good, realistic image of what detectives say and do while they are working. The way that the detectives discussed the case with each other gave me a good insight of a real police environment, appearing as though the author researched a lot about being a detective.

While the book has a good amount of action, it is somewhat slow, which made it hard for me to keep reading. Perhaps a problem is the continuous dialogue, where there is sometimes pages and pages of conversation between groups of people, oftentimes making it difficult to follow.

I found that the characters were lacking in something, which I found to be differing personalities and humour. Their jokes sound the same, and the characters do not seem fully developed. The perspectives change constantly, so maybe this contributed to the problem. When the point of view switches every few pages it can be hard to differentiate between the voice of the characters.

The writing is also average. Something about the author is that he wrote a script of this story in the intention of it becoming a film before writing the novel. Therefore, as previously mentioned, the novel has a lot of dialogue.

The 'big reveal' is quite fascinating and unexpected. It took me a while to understand, but I appreciated the unique idea of it. There were also several action scenes in the novel that took me by surprise, and overall I think that Ragdoll is a really good idea for a story.

This is a good book if you're looking for a different thriller that closely follows a terrifying crime. Clues are given throughout the novel to determine who the killer is.

Thank you to Hachette Australia for the advanced reader copy that I received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

‘One dead body, six victims’

Meet William Oliver Layton-Fawkes, an English detective nicknamed ‘Wolf’.  He’s just been reinstated to the Metropolitan Police Force four years after his attempt to kill a man.  A man he was convinced was a serial killer –twenty-seven victims in twenty-seven days – even though a jury had returned a not guilty verdict. 

Wolf receives a ‘phone call early one Saturday morning, summoning him to a crime scene.  The body, the ‘ragdoll’, is composed of the body parts of six different victims stitched together, suspended in a room close to where Wolf lives.  He can see his own flat from the window.

Wolf recognises the head of the victim as the man he tried to kill four years earlier.  Who are the other victims, and why were they killed? And then a list of names and dates, together with photographs of the ragdoll is sent to Wolf’s journalist ex-wife, Andrea.  The first name has today’s date, and it is clearly a hit-list.  Now the police are in a race against time: both to try to identify the owners of the body parts, and to try to prevent the people on the hit-list from being murdered.  There are a number of puzzles to be solved in the search for the murderer, and at times Wolf is his own worst enemy.

In addition to Wolf, there are a number of other interesting characters.  There’s a young policeman who becomes obsessed with the case, whose research is essential.  There are personal histories to be understood and aspects of various pasts to be negotiated.  And, it would really ruin the read if I write much more about the story. 

If you like fast moving crime stories, if you can handle dark novels with flashes of black humour, then you may want to pick this one up.  The main characters are interesting, and mostly well developed, the story is detailed and has a number of different layers.  There’s plenty of tension as the time ticks down.

I picked this novel up, and found it very difficult to put down.  

Note: My thanks to Hachette Australia and NetGalley for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

It is such an interesting bloody book. I had fallen in love with Wolf as he believes in justice even though the lines do become blurred at times. But as the book moves along I realize that he is a man so haunted about something he asked for when his world was crashing down.  Will he ever get away from the Cremation killer and the past or will it come for him?
Wolf is a complex man that wants to work with others but they are all wary of him as he is known to get his way. This killer is playing with people's lives and the death clock has started and Wolf' is the last victim but can he find the monster before it is too late.
Baxter is so tired of her feelings for Wolf, they have gotten in the way for so long but she still believes in the man and even though her fellow officers find proof that Wolf is involved in these awful murders does her will crack but she can't give up trying to save him.
As the book moves along we find out what drives Wolf and how he has taken on the killer all by himself and I realized that he has lost his way a long time ago and I was so glad that Baxter helps him even though he breaks her heart again.
Just a incredible journey of one man and his regrets and the damage he has caused.

**Thank you to Hachette Australia and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

3 stars!!! 

When I first checked out the synopsis for this book, I was completely reeled in, I have to admit. I am a huge fan of British crime and I was sincerely looking forward to reading a novel about a serial killer. I truly wanted to add this book to my list of favourites. But, unfortunately, the story didn't live up to my expectations and the reasons are as follows.

To give a brief outline of the novel, the story is centered around a prolific serial killer that murders 6 victims and their dismembered parts are grotesquely stitched together to create a puppet masterpiece. Thus, earning them the nickname the "Ragdoll" killer. It is up to Detective Fawkes aka Wolf to figure about who is behind this gruesome act before more bodies keep piling up. Sounds interesting right? Unfortunately that's where it ends.

I have to admit there are parts to this book that I did like. I loved the plot twists a lot. The pace of the novel is brisk and each twist/turn left me gaping. I wanted to figure out who did it and how they would be caught. I also didn't mind the characters too much as I felt we get a good glimpse of who they are at work and we also get a glimpse of their personal lives. This helped in building well rounded people and we understood how each one functioned or thought. The dialogue in the novel was not too intense either. We get snippets of humour, sarcasm and as well intense moments. I especially loved the police procedural aspects of the story and liked seeing the point of view from the media. However, there were also major flaws because of this.

One was that the story was way too focused on the detective work and the whodunnit parts that a major angle was neglected. The POV of the killer. So what we get is how the killer is caught and how he kills the victims. But we do not get the inner workings of the Unsub's mind. I really think that this would have elevated the novel further.

Second was that there were constant POV shifts within a chapter which gets rather distracting after a while. I think one or two in each section is fine but sometimes you got 4 character shifts and then as a reader, you are trying to piece together the story without fully appreciating the plot. Thirdly, I found the ending a bit too far fetched and rushed. The ending was extremely unsatisfying. The reveal of the killer left me with a bleh feeling which is the only way I can describe it. It was not thrilling or intense. While his motive behind it wasn't even realistic. I was really expecting more. But, I wasn't blown away.

All in all, I would say the book is a promising start to the series. But, I guess I am not a huge fan of DS Will Fawkes. I'd recommend the book, if you wish to pass the time, but then again some of you might enjoy it, if you are looking for a straightforward mystery.

A memorable and interesting story about a rugged and tortured detective doing his utmost to save lives doing whatever it takes. This story will be mentioned in the same breath as those written by Tana French, John Grisham or Robert Galbraith. For any lovers of crime fiction this is a must read.

A well-written, solidly-plotted crime novel with a cast of unique & memorable characters and plenty of plot twists & turns. A surprisingly slick & accomplished read for a debut novel - really, really entertaining stuff!

Sent a copy of Daniel Coles’ Ragdoll by the publishers through NetGalley (thank you to both), I was excited to read a new crime book by a debut author. While the premise of the book was quite daunting and ugly (six dismembered bodies sewn together to form one Frankenstein’s monster), I was keen to see how Cole developed the professional and personal relationships of his leads, as well as resolved the hideous crime, in the first book in a series. 
After reading a really charming foreword where readers learn Cole thought to write a screenplay after watching the character of Jack Bauer in the TV series 24 and, having his efforts rebuffed, wrote this novel, it’s easy to see the influence of what was, at the time, cutting edge television. 
The main character in Ragdoll is Detective William (Wolf) Fawkes – his entire name forming the neat and symbolic anagram. Having disgraced himself and his profession in an earlier case, and served time, Fawkes is assigned to track down the ragdoll killer along with his former partner, the edgy Emily Baxter. 
Complicated, irascible and capable, Wolf is a loner in every sense. Divorced from his wife, the anchor of a tabloid news show that is stalking the Ragdoll investigation’s every move and impeding it, he’s also loyal and believes himself smarter than everyone in the room. This is fair enough, as he mostly is – he’s also attractive to all the women, including his professional partner and ex and even a suspect in the crime. But for someone so smart, he really ends up doing some very silly things. This, frankly, annoyed me.
Well-written, paced and mostly plotted, I loved the first three-quarters of the book. But, for me, the last quarter lost a bit of credibility – and it was Wolf’s character that caused this. I was happily taken for the ride he started, enjoying the repartee between characters, pop culture references, the way tabloid TV and it’s unethical practises and cut-throat manner were exposed, and even the reminders of Wolf’s masculine superiority and inability to put himself first (unlike, apparently, his ex-wife – though she is redeemed – sort of) gelled. But, in the end, I found my credibility stretched to breaking point, even within the world Cole has created. While Jack Bauer got away with a great deal, it was partly because his organisation operated outside the law. Wolf tries to and while that’s fine, it’s how and why he does and what he gets away with (he is only a detective after all) which most often happens because others are prepared to risk their jobs and reputations for him or, worse, are conveniently blind to what’s going on, and the consequences of this that left me a bit disappointed.
Having said that, I do think this is a really good read, with some terrific writing that throws some interesting characters in the mix. And, though I was a tad disappointed with the outcome, I am looking forward to another instalment of the man called Wolf and his pack.