Review: Death List

I haven’t read anything from Paul Johnston for a while, which made me irritable, as I loved his Quint novels set in the futuristic Edinburgh as well as his excellent Mavros novels set in Greece. But then from nowhere and bursting out with an angry and dynamic pen comes this rip-roaring serial-killer opus set in modern- day London. This I must warn you that Death List is a brutal, disturbing but very witty adventure tale but has a dark overtone in its very literate narrative.

Take Matt Wells, struggling writer, struggling father, and struggling man in a world that has conspired against him, and add an obsessive and deranged fan stalking him, and you have the ingredients for a tense thriller. The deranged fan, is in fact a budding serial killer who calls himself the White Devil, who ensnares Wells in a deadly cat and mouse game. The results of this game is a trail of torture, murder and bodies around London - all based on scenes of Well’s crime fiction. It seems that the White Devil is punishing people who did him harm during his traumatic childhood. His priest, his teacher, a school bully all meet hideous ends, but then The Devil starts targeting people from Wells’ world, and then the police sit-up and take notice, as it seems that Wells is being set-up. It also seems that this Devil seems to now every move Wells makes, which adds to Wells’ frustration.

Wells decides to send as many of his loved ones, his daughter, his ex-wife, his mother and lover into hiding, while calling on his old rugby friends to help him fight back against the Devil. Utilising high-tech methods as well as brute force, Wells and his cohorts start hunting the hunter. While in the background a gang of former SAS paratroopers is roaming London’s back-alley ways searching for answers from a serious of gangsters.

As the good guys, as well as the baddies are despatched with a dash of the Grand Guignol, the stakes get higher as Wells gets angrier as well as desperate as to what the motives are in this cruel and unusual game. This is a very fast read, and one that I am sure will spark a series as Wells is an interesting character and one that remains angry at the end, as there is one very disturbing plot strand left unresolved. – Ali Karim

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Ali Karim - RAM

Book Review: Death List