The Countdown Killer – ARC Book Review

A MAN MURDERED, LIVE ON CAMERA

When a DVD is delivered in the dead of night, DCI Cara Elliott hits play on a horrifying showreel of violence… This is death, on demand.

A KILLER COUNTING DOWN

Avid viewers are paying for the killings, with twisted specifications. A request, an abduction, a murder. And always in a forty-eight-hour pattern.

A MISSING DETECTIVE

But when the killer finds out they’re being investigated, they reveal their next target. In forty-eight hours, a police officer will be the one in front of the camera. The hunters have become the hunted, and the clock is ticking…

This is the fourth book of the Major Crimes series. You do need to read the first book The Echo Man to keep up with some of the incidents that are mentioned in the book.

Cara gets a DVD in the middle of the night at the precinct. While watching the DVD, she finds that she is watching an actual live murder happening in the footage. They realize that they are handling one of the most dangerous murder crime cases that they had ever solved in the lives. These murder victims were once involved in incidents where the law has let them go scot-free. And as such, a group of murderers kidnap them and let them taste their own medicine by filming out the murder.

This was a fast paced thriller and is unputdownable. The main characters Cara and Griffin were likable. I really like the author’s style of writing as the author manage to keep the reader at the edge of the story. There were some gory details in the book and of course as expected in the most thrillers, there were twists and turns. The ending was unexpected and shocking. Sam Holland is one of my favorite psychological thriller authors and ever since I read the Echo Man, which was fast paced and intriguing and horrifying, this one was also intriguing and unputdownable thriller. Not too sure if there will be a fifth book of the series but none the same, I cannot wait to read more books from this author–worth 4.5 stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.