Blood Men | Paul Cleave

I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, where this story is set. Cleave is a good crime writer but I think for me, the portrayal of the city as dark, sinister and Gothic seemed a little strained, as I live here and it doesn't seem that bad! I 've been thinking a lot about the book as I am trying to figure out why I didn't love it outright, as with Paddy Richardson's crime books set in Christchurch.
I think that with Cleave's type of serial-rapist story if it had been set in New York or Los Angeles it would have been a lot more believable for me. maybe other readers who live there would be ok with reading of a far off city which seems steeped in darkness where horrid things happen. Our city is called "The Garden City" and its genteel calmness (others would call it boringness) just doesn't seem to match the story.
In this crime novel a serial rapist's son is caught up in a bad bank robbery where his wife is shot. He spirals out of control and in a matter of days has come to acknowledge that some of the violence he knows is in his father, is coming out in him. He makes contact with his father in hope that he'll know who was involved and then the body count starts to mount. It is mostly resolved but as i turned to the last page I was left with the feeling this was going to lead into a sequel. I hope it's a good one, as I will read it, in support of a local author. But I hope I like it a bit more than this one. It's not a bad read, it's well written, but not as satisfying as Richardson, whom I've read concurrently.

Buy at Fishpond.co.nz