Mo Hayder

The patients at Beechway High Secure Unit are terrified. Unexplained power cuts have lead to a series of horrifying incidents. And now fear has spread from the inmates to the staff. DI Jack Caffery is called to investigate, whilst working the most impossible case of his life. Will he be able to stare pure evil in the eye, and survive?

Jack Caffery

Poppet

Denaiir

The Jack Caffery series is getting so good again! After the mess that were Ritual and Skin, this series is back to my favorites and keeps me on my toes.

I actually checked under the bed when reading this one, and was quite afraid of what I would find there. 

Poppet is the sixth book featuring DI Jack Caffery and even though each one is a separate investigation, they should REALLY be read in order, the characters' background is too important to read them independently.

The mental institution, with its urban legend, made for an extremely creepy setting in this one. The scenes set in the various countryside homes created a good balance, keeping me engaged and making me root for the characters while still maintaining a gloomy overall atmosphere. 

I've loved Jack Caffery since Hayder's first book Birdman. He's the perfect British investigator for me - flawed, brooding, full of secrets but dedicated. He's still just as charming in this one and I was really hoping he would be able to find a solution to his and Flea's problems. I am still by far not a fan of hers, but finally we are moving towards a conclusion to that whole mess and I'm relieved that it is moving forward.

Jack shared the lead role in Poppet with AJ, the psychiatric ward supervisor. He was a great character, very likable even though he was sometimes not making the best choices. I was really hoping he would find his happy ending. The other characters: the patients, aunt Patience, Melanie, made a pretty good ensemble cast.

Hayder is my favorite dark crime author, and I'm very sad that I'm slowly getting to the end of her work. I hope she will write more someday.

Mo Hayder has for years been a master of chilling, seamlessly-plotted thrillers that keep the reader glued to the page long after lights out. Her latest novel, Poppet, is Hayder at her most terrifying: a gripping novel about the search for a dangerous mental patient on the loose. Everything goes according to procedure when a patient, Isaac, is released into the community from a high security mental health ward. But when the staff realize that he was connected to a series of unexplained episodes of self-harm amongst the ward's patients, and furthermore that he was released in error, they call on Detective Jack Caffery to investigate, and to track Isaac down before he can kill again. Will the terrifying little effigies Isaac made explain the incidents around the ward, or provide the clue Caffery needs to predict what he's got planned? Mo Hayder is renowned for conjuring nightmares that sink under the skin, and in Poppet she has delivered a taut, unbearably suspenseful novel that will not let readers go.

Poppet Jack Caffery

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