2008 crime novella, stand-alone. In the USA, a serial killer is
cutting off young women's arms and legs; nobody's found the bodies.
But his latest victim is a mobster's daughter.
It's a very different atmosphere from the Scottish policing that
makes up most of MacBride's writing, but the core concepts are the
same: nasty things happen, and nobody has a particularly good time.
This one's more gruesome than many of the others, because nobody's
restrained by police rules (though I was rather surprised that the
impromptu torture actually produced useful information; most people
would make something up just to make it stop).
The most interesting part to me was the dynamic between the three
henchmen, one of whom is also the narrator. The people they are and
the jobs they do mean that their ability to interact is quite
restricted, and complicated ideas are being pushed through a narrow
channel of acceptable behaviours. Definite shades of Florida Weird
here, though it's not set in Florida.
Very black but, in its way, great fun.
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