My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Following a traumatic incident in London, journalist Jennifer Dorey has returned home to Guernsey, taking a job as a local newspaper reporter. When she finds a drowned woman on a beach, Jennifer uncovers something much bigger and more sinister than she first thought.
Jennifer enlists the help of DCI Michael Gilbert, an officer on the verge of retirement, to investigate a pattern of similar deaths over the last fifty years. They follow a dark trail of island myths and folklore to the illegitimate son of a Nazi soldier, whose painstakingly executed work has so far gone undetected. But as Jennifer gets closer to the truth of the killer’s identity, she finds herself stepping deeper into his grasp.
Jennifer thinks she’s safe, but the dark hides sinister things in The Devil’s Claw, Lara Dearman’s exhilarating debut novel.
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Now, I read a lot of mystery books and I especially love harsh island settings like in this one. Part of the charm of reading this book was just that the mystery takes place in Guernsey, an island that was occupied by Germany during WW2. Add this dark history seems to have a connection to the crimes that journalist Jennifer Dorey thinks has been committed for several decades. But, how to stop a killer if there is no proof that a murder has been committed?
The Devil's Claw is an interesting book. I loved the setting, the Nazi connection was intriguing. And I found Jennifer Dorey to be an is an interesting character whos return home from London occurred when her father died. But something happened in London that made her afraid to go back. DCI Michael Gilbert is also a great character with a tragic past that almost killed him a few years back. Now they, this odd duo starts to work together to solve a maybe crime. I wish I could say that the crime captivated me, but one some level I felt that I never really got truly invested in the criminal case. I wonder if it is because it was not hard to figure out who the baddie was. There are a couple characters introduced as the potential candidates and I nailed it quite easily. Sure, there were moments when I wondered if I was truly correct. But, in the end, I was right, so yay to me. But, I think that the main problem is that the case just did not really get suspenseful. The case moved too slowly forward.
Nevertheless, I quite liked the characters, and, despite the slowness of the case was it an interesting one to try to figure out the motive for and I would definitely read the sequel.
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