Published 2017 by Headline Publishing Group
ISBN 978-1-4722-0109-6
410 pages
Genre: crime
Keywords: police detective Kate Burrows, generation Z teenagers, peer pressure, social media, family values, parenting, Essex, UK
Grade: 2/5
In this book there are 410 pages, 113 chapters and a prologue and an epilogue, that means an average of 3.6 pages per chapter, that jump from topic to topic as there is several stories running in parallel thus making it quite difficult to follow the thread.
This book would have benefited from considerable editing.
The main story is about the murders of several teenagers (13-14 years of age) from the same school and class, horrible murders, mutilations, burned alive, as horrible as it is unimaginable.
Kate Burrows is a retired police detective who is widely admired for her past work, a legend. She lives with Patrick Kelly a person living on the edge of what is legal; years ago, his only daughter was murdered. Annie is Kate’s successor; she turns to Kate for help, even before it is officially requested.
How to get insight into what goes in the land of teenagers? Through their online presence on social media. A sex ring is discovered that has been kept quiet by the school, they did not want a scandal, the girls wore different colored rings according to what they are ready to “give” to the boys. Annie is horrified. The two first girls murdered were ‘queens’ of their year. Is this why they were murdered?
“I was reading 1984 by Orwell, it’s strange how people were once worried about Big Brother watching them, and now they are frightened no one is watching them” (Page 134).
Doing police work is to see bad parenting every day, so Annie does not envy the teachers their work; nobody takes responsibility, no kindness or calm. Girls at the age of 13-14 years of age have a particularly difficult time because many look like grown women, but are treated as children and at the same time they are so eager to be accepted by their peers, they all look alike, in cloths, makeup, and behavior, like clones.
After years of feminism the girls thought what mattered was how they looked and how many likes they had on social media; but that is not real life (page 375).
A sideline story is that Patrick gets a visit from Joseph who tells him that his mother on her death bed revealed that Patrick is his real father. Patrick is married to Bella but has a mistress, Christina. It turns out that Joseph really is his son and Patrick is happy about getting a real family again. But it gets complicated because having experienced how to be with a woman he loves Joseph wants a divorce but Bella behaves as a psychopath and attacks Christine with acid.
I will probably not read more by this author.
On the author:
Martina Cole (born 1959) has since 1991 published 27 novels and been translated into 31 languages, she sold more than 17 million books; several have been adapted for television (according to Crime Writers Association). She has written several series, Damaged is the 4th book on Kate Burrows.
She won the 2021 Diamond Dagger, for a life time contribution to crime literature written in the English language and for sustained excellency.
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