Ritual

Starred review from July 14, 2008
At the start of Hayder's superb third crime novel to feature Det. Insp. Jack Caffery (after The Treatment
), Sgt. Phoebe “Flea” Marley, a police diver, retrieves a severed hand from Bristol harbor. Without a corpse, the investigation stalls, until fingerprints identify the hand as belonging to Ian “Mossy” Mallows, a known heroin junkie. While Caffery pursues the drug angle, Flea uncovers a possible connection to muti
, a brand of African witchcraft and traditional medicine that incorporates body parts into its rituals. Digging deeper, Caffery and Flea discover that Mallows may still be alive and the men responsible may be using muti
as a cover for even darker purposes. Meanwhile, Flea mourns the accidental death of her parents two years earlier while they were diving in a remote pool in Africa's Kalahari desert. Hayder vividly evokes torture and drug abuse, but the violence is never gratuitous. Readers looking for visceral thrills need look no further than this gritty English series.

July 15, 2008
After a couple of stand-alone novels (e.g., "Pig Island; The Devil of Nanking"), Hayder has brought DI Jack Caffery back in her latest moody thriller. Jack has recently transferred from London to the Bristol police department for personal reasons. His first case involves the discovery of a hand in the Bristol harbor. When police diver Phoebe "Flea" Marley suggests that the hand was severed premortem and that the hand may have been used in a muti ritual (involving African witchcraft), Jack finds his investigation following an increasingly horrific and terrifying path. Hayder has learned the power of suggested horror rather then describing it in the overly graphic scenes that were problematic in her first Caffery novel ("The Birdman"). And the introduction of Flea Marley, who is coming to terms with her own tragedy, balances Jack's personal journey nicely. This one will appeal to fans of Stephen Booth and the BBC series "Wire in the Blood". Recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 5/15/08.]Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2008
Once again Hayderauthor of such acclaimed crime novels asThe Treatment (2001), The Devil of Nanking (2005), and Pig Island (2007)masterfully exploresthe horrific boundaries of culture and evil. The setting is Bristol, England, where police diving expert Flea Marley is called in to investigate after a human hand is found in the Avon river. The discovery links Flea with burned-out detective Jack Cafferythe lead in both Birdman (1999), Hayders first novel, and The Treatmentand sets the pair on a journey into Englands heroin subculture. Followinga trail that becomes darker with every turn, they move relentlessly toward a confrontation with practitioners of muthi, a form of African witchcraft that uses human body parts for healing and spell-casting rituals. Hayder has long been a master at blending crime and horror genres, but this time she outdoes herself, flip-flopping the supernatural and the explainable like a cycle of poison and antidote that will remain with the reader long after the final page. Superviolent, but for those with strong stomachs, completely gripping.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)