Thoughts

This is the third book in the Matilda Darke series, and I love a good detective mystery series. The previous two have been hit and miss, but this one did a lot better in my eyes.

The story has an intriguing premise: a murder in a house/prison of teenage murderers, which gives rise to several layers on top of the specific crime being investigated. There's the locked room murder mystery that is an age old genre, but you have the additional complexities of the power imbalance between jailers and these youth offenders, alongside the nature versus nurture concerns.

As we travel through the investigation, the reason each boy has been locked up is revealed. One of Matilda's team gets very invested in understanding why these boys have done what they've done. It becomes an obsession for him, and you can understand that drive, it's a wider question - why do bad things happen? What drives people to commit the crimes they do? At any age, of course, but specifically these younger boys. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's a good answer, but I really enjoyed this as a theme throughout the book.

It's definitely the extra layers that make this book worth reading. The writing is good, the crime itself is fine, the actions of our main character somewhat baffling. Ms Darke didn't actually seem to have a lot to do with the main case and was very distracted, leaving it to the wider team to sort it out. But on the other hand, I quite liked that they got to take centre stage, and as I say, they were looking into topics wider than just the murder on the ground.

If you like Damian Boyd or L. J. Ross, then this murder mystery series might be right up your street - slightly lighter writing, but grittier subject matters and a team looking into them. I am still keen to read the next book in the series, and I'm hoping that Matilda Darke will play more of a central role in that one - it's always better when the main character comes up with the solution, isn't it, that's what we're reading for!

Rating: 4 / 5