Birthdays for the Dead
Taking a break from his Logan McRae series, MacBride offers a stand-alone whose premise is pure, twisted genius. Ash Henderson, a big, bruising police detective in fictional Oldcastle, Scotland, has been chasing a killer who snatches girls before their thirteenth birthday, tortures them to death, and then sends birthday cards—with gruesome photos—to the girls’ families each year thereafter. The kicker? Henderson has been getting the birthday cards, too, but won’t tell anyone his missing daughter is also a victim: if he’s taken off the case, he’ll lose his chance to catch the “Birthday Boy” himself. This has all the hallmarks of MacBride’s best books—gruesome violence, foul weather, pitch-black humor, and entertainingly mismatched protagonists (Henderson is paired with “freak-show” forensic psychologist Alice McDonald). But despite all this has to offer readers so inclined, MacBride needs an editor who’s not afraid to use a knife, as the book feels about 100 pages and one plot twist too long. On the other hand, those who enjoy spending time in MacBride’s dark world may not mind a bit. --Keir Graff