Ragdoll

January 16, 2017
Set in London, Cole’s strong first novel—a gritty fusion of police procedural, mystery, and thriller—follows emotionally unstable detective William “Wolf” Fawkes as he attempts to track down a killer who dismembers his victims and stitches various body parts back together to create a nightmarish single “ragdoll.” As a team of overworked investigators diligently searches for clues, it becomes apparent that all the victims are somehow connected to a highly controversial case in Fawkes’s past, one that involved freeing a man suspected of being London’s most prolific serial killer (27 teenage prostitutes killed in 27 days). When the press receives a list of the killer’s future victims and the exact dates of their deaths, Fawkes—whose name is last on the list—realizes that he has just a few weeks to find the deranged psychopath and save himself. Cole uses the rising tension and the mystery of the killer’s true identity to create a page-turning narrative, though the final payoff seems a bit underwhelming after such a powerful setup. Agents: Esther Newberg and Zoe Sandler, ICM.

November 15, 2016
Cole's rag doll is a cadaver stitched together from the body parts of six different victims, and contentious detective William Fawkes, aka the Wolf, is tasked with finding the madman responsible. Soon he learns that he's a new rag doll candidate. A London Book Fair hit already sold to 25 countries.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2017

Veteran and volatile London police detective William "Wolf" Fawkes has just been reinstated to his post after a suspension for assaulting a suspect. He is called by his former partner to a brutal crime scene where the "corpse" is actually made up of the body parts of six different victims. Wolf and a team of detectives are tasked with identifying the parts of "the Ragdoll," as the press call the cadaver, as well as finding the people named on a hit list sent by the killer to Wolf's reporter ex-wife. The final name on the list is Wolf's, which complicates the investigation. With a third-person omniscient narrator, the briskly paced story line allows readers into the mind-sets of the various characters--from the multiple detectives to potential victims. VERDICT In portraying the real emotions and inner turmoil of its flawed protagonist, Cole's grim yet humorous first novel offers a fresh take on British detective drama that is bound to attract admirers of Robert Galbraith and Clare Mackintosh. [See Prepub Alert, 10/24/16.]--Natalie Browning, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community Coll. Lib., Richmond, VA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2016

Cole's rag doll is a cadaver stitched together from the body parts of six different victims, and contentious detective William Fawkes, aka the Wolf, is tasked with finding the madman responsible. Soon he learns that he's a new rag doll candidate. A London Book Fair hit already sold to 25 countries.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 15, 2017
A serial killer with a gruesome M.O. taunts an already damaged London detective.If there's one thing that takes the wind out of fictional serial killers' sails it's when they deliver exactly what they threaten. Especially when this involves a kill list, such as the one in Cole's predictable debut, which earns high marks not for originality but for the number of cliches utilized. DS William Oliver Layton-Fawkes (no wonder he goes by Wolf) is only just back on the job after a demotion and a stint in a mental hospital following a violent blowup in court, where, after a verdict didn't go his way, he beat the newly vindicated man nearly to death. Turns out that Naguib Khalid, whom Wolf was positive was "The Cremation Killer," was bad news after all, as he went on to set a child on fire (the squeamish should not read this book; Cole seems to delight in being gruesome without the benefit of furthering any salient plot points). Wolf's new case isn't any less grim: in an empty apartment, a strange corpse is discovered with the singular distinction of being one body comprised of pieces of six victims sewn together like a psychotic poppet. Wolf and his former partner, DS Emily Baxter, in charge of training the team's new guy--who seems to be the only one capable of real police work--determine that the chopped bits are all related to Wolf's previous case. And the killer isn't done: a list is delivered containing six names and six dates, presumably the so-called Ragdoll Killer's next victims. And Wolf's is the last name on the list.Unnecessary blood and guts can only go so far to obscure the fact that this is a well-trod plot lacking in any real twists or substantive character development.

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