ONCE UPON A TIME LIKE YOU’VE NEVER READ IT BEFORE…
DI Lyla Rondell is on the case of a lifetime. Tasked with investigating a series of perplexing deaths, the only lead she has is that each appears to be based on a different classic fairy tale. Far from the stuff of bedtime stories, the press is having a field day with what they have named the Grimm Ripper Murders.
But as the bodies stack up, Lyla’s whole world is about to flip on its head. Because the killer’s bloody trail stretches deep into her own origin story, and when she discovers the truth, nothing will ever be the same again.
Faced with the fact that everything she knows is fiction, Lyla will have to take a little creative license of her own if she’s going to turn the final page on the killings…
Dark bleatings, my floofy tribe. I got this book in an Abominable Book Club box (and foolishly didn’t realise who the author was but I have read shorts by her and she’s great). I am normally intrigued by the Abominable selections, but this is the first time that I scrapped everything on my TBR and put this on top, so intrigued was I by the back cover synopsis.
As said synopsis suggests, we’re following a detective investigating a string of murders based on fairy tales. Ooh, how cool, I thought to myself. I’m not normally a thriller fan, and I’m not normally interested in detective novels, but this had a grimm (da da dum tsch) twist that I couldn’t resist. So, into the book I ventured, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and for the first half of the story, I was deeply invested in this protagonist, and also another character we’re following who is being held captive by the killer and forced to do some very odd bidding. I read those first 200 pages in one sitting, I could not put this book down.
I was there, delighted, thinking that perhaps I’d been hasty in my decision to just not bother with thrillers and detective capers because this was just excellent. I was already thinking ahead to who I’d pick up next. Perhaps Sarah Pinborough, I thought.
And then something extremely fairy tale-ish happened. I’m talking blow me down with a feather, or whatever the saying is. I’m talking all the goodness graciousnesses. All the whooooa wait a minutes! All the what in the actual fucks.
My tribe, my flabbers are gasted. A. K. Benedict…. excuuuuse me but just what in the heckity heck do you think you’re doing?! My mind, it’s blown. To smithereens. Turns out this book isn’t “just” a thriller after all, but I can’t tell you what it is and I shan’t even give you hints, aside from it was the reading equivalent of one of those Russian nesting dolls. It’s just so creative.
Anyway, I was already quite confidently sure I would rank this 5/5 but if I hadn’t been sure at that point, the back half of the book would have sealed it anyway. Nary am I this surprised.
I never use the word “nary”, but this is what reading A. K. Benedict will do to you, I suppose.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book to…well…all, really. There’s something here for more audiences than I’m used to being able to recommend to. I absolutely loved it!
If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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