Cannibal City by Jennifer Lee Thomson
A killer is stalking his victims on Glasgow's streets.
Men are being abducted, kept tied up for weeks and force-fed, then strangled and their livers are being removed.
Detective Inspector Duncan Waddell has enough problems not least of all that his best friend and colleague Stevie who'smeant to be comatose is talking to him and only him. Now he faces his most bizarre case yet.
This time he has help in the shape of FBI profiler Odessa Thorne who arrives as part of a new Police Scotland initiative.
When a career criminal comes forward to say he was targeted by the killer but somehow managed to get away, Waddell hopes it's the breakthrough they need. But can they trust this witness who's known to be a habitual liar?
As they close in on their ruthless killer Waddell must look intoa heart of darkness to get his killer.
Jennifer is an award-winning crime writer (she won the Scottish Association of Writers Award for crime thriller Vile City, the first book in the Detective in a Coma series) and is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association. She studied creative writing at Strathclyde University. She’s also a feature writer whose work has appeared in The Guardian, The Times and Scotland On Sunday.
She wrote the Detective in a Coma (so called because the detective in the title is in a coma and only the lead character in the series DI Waddell can hear him) and the Die Hard for Girls series of books.
A human and animal rights advocate, she wrote Living Cruelty Free - Live a More Compassionate Life which focuses on how we can be kinder to animals and each other.
In her spare time, she loves going for walks with my rescue greyhound Harley and plotting the perfect murder.
Social Media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jenthom72
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VileCitybyJenniferLeeThomson/
Blog: http://ramblingsofafrustratedcrimewriter.blogspot.com
Website: http://jennifer-thomson.blogspot.com/
Purchase Links:
Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2CZ4mVH
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3jQUr5c
Waterstones: https://bit.ly/2CQ7Zxi
Book Depository: https://bit.ly/2Pa0tzu
Review
Now I love love love a book set in my home town of Glasgow! Throw in a bit of crime fiction with a serial killer and a FBI behavioural scientist who says words like UNSUB then I am in heaven. Don’t know quite what that says about me!
I really enjoyed ‘Cannibal City’, it was gritty and real enough but not too much to put off the reader. It’s a good reflection of a modern Glasgow. It may look a bit more polished nowadays but there is still the criminal underworld that exists and is thriving. When Jennifer wrote it’s the world of have and have-nots she was bang on the money. Which is a shame but I’m going to start to venture off on a wee rant about Glasgow politics. Back to the book!
One thing I loved about this book was it’s use of the local vernacular. It used real Scots words like glaikit and dreich and didn’t try to explain them. Language like this needs to be preserved and I was so pleased when I saw Jennifer was doing this.
Now, I haven’t read the first book in this series ‘Vice City’ but you don’t need to in order to read this one. Yes, there are a few references to past events, particular when it comes to Stevie but you can just work with them. It doesn’t really affect the main narrative of this book, which is the cannibal storyline. I am going to rectify this though and read it ASAP as I really love this one.
The characters were well crafted in ‘Cannibal City’ especially those of Waddell and Hastie. I like their hate relationship as it provides a few laughs which are needed to counterbalance the horror of the crime sections. Although, cannibalism features in so many books in this genre, Jennifer has managed to find a tweak to the theme which works amazingly well. Especially, when you get the back story of the perpetrator.
I have really enjoyed entering this world of Glasgow’s police and I’m so pleased that I signed up for this tour. I don’t hesitate to recommend this book to you! 4.5⭐️!
