'The Naturalist' - Read it with the lights on!

Sometimes it's almost too easy to measure the worth of a book, one method I use is called the 'Rinse and Repeat'.
It goes like this:

I read the last words of a book & probably fumbling with excitement, click into my Kindle store, search the book or author and immediately buy either the next in the series, or just another book by the same author.

As they say, money talks, and my dollars are saying

 'You, my Dear Wordsmith, are doing it right.'

(They are also saying.... have you heard of the library???)

Andrew Mayne is onto that kind of cash cow winner with his Naturalist Series and I have devoured both book one, 'The Naturalist' and last night book two, 'Looking Glass' (after which followed a VERY bad night sleep....my tip would be do not read either of these in bed).

Today I am reviewing 'The Naturalist' because, well, first things first!

'The Naturalist' describes itself as a Thriller and yep, it lives up to its' genre tag with a plot that revolves around gruesome animal (?) maulings and a serial killer who the authorities remain stubbornly blind to (picture a group of uniformed officers with their hands over their ears chanting 'LA LA LA').

Mayne deftly drags his reader through a series of ever escalating scenes of horror, his narrative pace accelerating off the blocks from paragraph one, as our hero, Professor Theo Cray, is taken into custody on the suspicion he has murdered a former student.

Sadly for Cray, this experience is probably the best thing that happens to him for at least 300 pages.

A scientist (and possibly a borderline sociopath), Cray is driven hard by his analytical mind and his 'scientific' world view provides a believable basis for his increasingly extreme behaviour over the course of the book.
Cray barrels through the plot with the momentum of a freight train , committing crimes against  common sense, his own body, other peoples bodies, decency and finally the law in his efforts to avenge his students death.
Problem is, for all his genius, he just cannot make himself heard; written off initially as grief stricken and finally as a creepy crackpot whose toes are inches from the line (spoiler alert... he crosses it;).

'The Naturalist' is an immersive read and I only managed to come up from its depths a few times; once to check the locks on the door (and if I'm honest, under the bed). If you like your reads fast paced, creepy and don't mind some graphic (scientific) description then I highly recommend this series to you.

Best thing is, there is a third book on the way!

As always, happy reading (with the light on). xxoo LMK

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