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Book Review of Pig Island

Pig Island
perryfran avatar reviewed on + 1223 more book reviews


I've read a few other novels by Hayder including a couple in the Jack Caffery series and the stand alone novel The Devil of Nanking. I thought all of these were well written suspense novels and would highly recommend them. PIG ISLAND was also intense and suspenseful but not quite as good as my previous Hayder reads. The story is about a journalist, Oaksey, who debunks a Jim Jones-like faith healer, Malichi Dove, twenty years prior to the narrative of this novel which mainly takes place on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. When an amateur video comes to light showing a mysterious tailed creature on the island, who many think may be the devil incarnate, Oaksey decides to investigate hoping to get a scoop on the story. But he ends up getting caught up in some really bizarre and grisly events. It turns out that Dove now resides on one side of the island and is in conflict with a religious group that resides on the other side. This conflict turns deadly when Oaksey confronts Dove on the island.

There are a lot of twists and surprises in the novel and the secret behind the mysterious video came as quite a shock. Then there was another twist at the end of the novel that was quite surprising. Overall, this one kept my interest but I didn't find it as compelling as the other Hayder novels I have read.