This review applies to the audio version.
In this stand-alone mystery, Steven Lamb, an unhappy twelve-year-old boy living in a small town in Somerset, UK, spends his spare time digging up the nearby moors. He's hoping to find the body of his uncle Billy, whom he's never met because Billy disappeared 19 years previously when he was just eleven. Presumed to be the victim of a notorious serial killer/pedophile, Billy is sill mourned by his mother and sister--Steven's gran and mother, with whom he lives a miserable existence, Billy's disappearance coloring everything in their lives a dull gray. He thinks that finding Billy's body will give the adults in his life a sense of closure and allow them to actually get on with being a normal family.
Arnold Avery, stuck away in Longmoor prison, has never admitted to Billy's abduction and killing as he has six of the others, so Steven, who's been doing a lot of reading about serial killers, undertakes to write him and simply ask--but must play a cat-and-mouse game to get his letters through the censors who read the letters to and from prisoners. Avery, who has spent years making nice so he can hope for some sort of parole, has his interest piqued by the letters written by "S.L" and is glad for something to occupy his thoughts and time. As events begin spiraling out of Steven's control, the ending seems to be a bit inevitable, but leaves you sitting on the edge of your proverbial seat just the same.
Told from the point of view of both Steven and Arnold Avery, this is not a book for the squeamish or faint of heart. But it's very well done, and excellently read, too. I hope to read more by this author in the future!
In this stand-alone mystery, Steven Lamb, an unhappy twelve-year-old boy living in a small town in Somerset, UK, spends his spare time digging up the nearby moors. He's hoping to find the body of his uncle Billy, whom he's never met because Billy disappeared 19 years previously when he was just eleven. Presumed to be the victim of a notorious serial killer/pedophile, Billy is sill mourned by his mother and sister--Steven's gran and mother, with whom he lives a miserable existence, Billy's disappearance coloring everything in their lives a dull gray. He thinks that finding Billy's body will give the adults in his life a sense of closure and allow them to actually get on with being a normal family.
Arnold Avery, stuck away in Longmoor prison, has never admitted to Billy's abduction and killing as he has six of the others, so Steven, who's been doing a lot of reading about serial killers, undertakes to write him and simply ask--but must play a cat-and-mouse game to get his letters through the censors who read the letters to and from prisoners. Avery, who has spent years making nice so he can hope for some sort of parole, has his interest piqued by the letters written by "S.L" and is glad for something to occupy his thoughts and time. As events begin spiraling out of Steven's control, the ending seems to be a bit inevitable, but leaves you sitting on the edge of your proverbial seat just the same.
Told from the point of view of both Steven and Arnold Avery, this is not a book for the squeamish or faint of heart. But it's very well done, and excellently read, too. I hope to read more by this author in the future!
