Publication: 22nd August 2019 – Manilla
FOR THIS KILLER, IT’S A GAME OF A B C
Criminal profilers Jan Grall and Rabea W yler are assigned the gruesome case of a
man found murdered in a w ildlife park. Later, tw o more bodies are found, both
brutally mutilated, and authorities soon realise that the victims are linked by the
letters of the alphabet tattooed on their skin.
Then the killer strikes again and Grall and W yler receive a mysterious package
containing a blood-encrusted scrap of skin marked w ith a letter. And w hen Grall’s
hotel room is marked w ith a Z, the race is on to find out w ho this vicious killer is.
Before it’s too late . . .
A tense and exciting serial killer thriller by debut author, Lars Schutz.
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Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for THE ALPHABET MURDERS, the debut novel by Lars Schutz. This dark and gripping novel is published today and I’d like to thank Tracy Fenton for inviting me to join the blog tour and Manilla for providing me with a copy of the book.
I do love serial killers in crime novels. Their minds are so twisted and you never know where the story is going to go. Also, I am a big fan of Criminal Minds and I do enjoy behavioural analysis procedure. In what I hope is the first of many cases, we meet Jan Grall, renowned profiler, and his colleague Rabea Wyler. They are called in the Westerwald area where there is a serial killer who leaves a letter of the alphabet tattooed on his victims together with quotes from famous literary works. For Jan the case is almost personal because he grew up in the area and coming back there means facing the ghosts from his past.
I found the setting claustrophobic and chilling and it perfectly fits with the suspenseful plot and some of the disturbing scenes. The chapters switch from character to character, including one of the serial killer’s victim, Tugba. Her point of view was the one I found more emotionally taut and thought-provoking: a young woman knowing she is about to die and doing everything she can to survive, including scratching her skin to erase the tattoo.
The author created a cast of complex and vividly-drawn characters. Jan and Rabea make a good pair of profilers and they both have a dark secret from their past that still haunts them. These are left a bit unresolved and I hope it means that will get to see more of these characters. They are called to investigate the Alphabet Murders by the local police. Anita Ichagawa is Senior Chief Superintendent, smart, strong-minded, and really good at her job. Stutter is Chief Superintendent, he likes to control and he doesn’t easily accept Anita’s place of command. He also doesn’t believe much in profiling and doesn’t make Jan’s job easy.
THE ALPHABET MURDERS is addictive and haunting, it is an accomplished and superb debut and I really look forward to reading more from this author and about these characters!!!
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Lars Schütz w as born in 1992. He w orks as a copyw riter for a large advertising
agency in Düsseldorf. The Alphabet Murders is his debut thriller.
Book After Book 