Review: Evergreen is a very unexpected serial killer thriller
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 18, 2013
David Jester's Evergreen takes the reader into the little known world of Irish Travellers, a gypsy-like group that lives on the fringes of European society. Self-reliant, squatting on government land, living in a closed-in community that has little contact with their outside neighbours, when members of the group are brutally murdered they have nobody to turn to but themselves.Convinced that the killer must come from within their community, instead of calling the police they start suspecting and questioning each other. This leads to all sorts of conflicts and violence among the members of this small community. While the killer continues piling up victims, they turn against each other, and long-hidden secrets are eventually revealed.It's certainly an original and entertaining take on the serial killer genre, as the actions of the panic-stricken townsfolk are nearly as brutal as those of the mysterious attacker. One wouldn't think of a Traveller community as the most likely setting for such a story, but it is their very difference that makes the story so original.The big "reveal" at the end is a bit of a stretch, although in some ways appropriate for this very particular group of people. It certainly wasn't enough to detract from what was a very good and fast-paced book.