G. R. Halliday

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‘Dark Waters’ is the second DI Monica Kennedy novel from new author GR Halliday. Like the first book, ‘From the Shadows’ which I reviewed recently, it’s very much a mixed bag. It’s part rural horror novel and part police procedural. The problem is that whilst the horror is gruesomely brilliant, the detecting is pretty dull. And unfortunately it’s the detecting that gets the most pages.
The two competing strands are set up right from the start. A young woman, Anabelle, who is touring the Highlands is assaulted and kidnapped, whilst DI Kennedy is called in to investigate a horrific murder. The victim has had his limbs crudely amputated and it isn’t long before a similarly mutilated corpse is found. From that point the stories run in parallel until they inevitably come together at the end. Like Sally in Tobe Hooper’s ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, Anabelle is subjected to a series of grotesque psychological and physical assaults at the hands of her bizarre rural captors. Meanwhile, Monica Kennedy and colleagues investigate the double murders, doggedly following leads and battling demons from their pasts like all modern cops.
The horror is quite brilliant. It’s really creepy, with the details of Anabelle’s assailants gradually teased out in a really effective way. The detail is graphic and horrific, but it’s the anticipation of horrors to come that really sinks into your bones. Contrasted against this vivid terror, the more traditional crime elements of the book are pale and boring. I fund myself turning Monica’s pages as quickly as I could to get back to Anabelle’s.
This imbalance was present in ‘From the Shadows’ too, but it’s even starker here and makes me wish that Halliday would turn his hand to a pure horror novel. Sadly, crime is where the money is in modern publishing, so I suspect that won’t happen. One other thing that’s worth calling out is Halliday’s great sense of place. Just as in his first book, he makes great use of the windswept Highland landscape and gives the horror a credible sense of isolation that makes Anabelle’s ordeal more convincing.
Like ‘From the Shadows’, ‘Dark Waters’ ends up with 3 stars from me. Parts of it would have got a much higher rating, but others drag it down.
… (meer)

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I tend to write reviews in my head when I’m reading a book and the one for ‘From the Shadows’ changed multiple times. At first it was “2 stars, badly written, DNF”, then it was “3 stars, competent but painfully familiar”, but towards the end it was “4 stars, this is actually really good”. It’s fair to say then, that ‘From the Shadows’ is a mixed bag. Ultimately though, it was good enough that I’m eager to read GR Halliday’s next book.
The plot revolves around the abduction and murder of a teenage boy and the investigation of that crime by police detective, Monica Kennedy, and a social worker, Michael Bach. It took me some time to get into the book. The beginning has some good parts, the details of the abduction are chilling, but something about the prose really turned me off. The middle third worked better for me, but is a bit convoluted. The book is too long at over 450 pages and I think this is where the editor’s knife was needed most. Fortunately, the final act is really gripping. A book that had seemed like an also ran finally found its feet. Plot and character development suddenly clicks into place and the result is great. A book I’d almost given up on became one I couldn’t put down.
I’m not sure why the book was such a rollercoaster for me. Looking back many of its strengths were clear from the start. It’s set in northern Scotland and Halliday makes good use of the location. Everything feels suitably remote and windswept and that lends the book a desperate atmosphere at times that works well. It has two strong leads in Kennedy and Bach. They are very different in many ways, but similar in their complex mix of determination and self doubt. The depiction of the villain and his crimes works well too, he is mysterious and his insanity is convincing enough to be genuinely disturbing. I think perhaps the problem is that the market for this kind of thing is so massively crowded at the moment that any book really has to shine to lift it’s head above the herd. ‘From the Shadows’ does that at times, but maybe not often enough.

… (meer)

My thanks to the Author publishers and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review.
This is the second book in this so far excellent series and while there are some references to the previous book it can easily and enjoyably be read as a standalone story. Our heroine returns to the serious crimes department to investigate a series of gruesome murders in the Scottish highlands. Monica Kennedy is fast becoming one of my favourite characters, the book is well written atmospheric and gripping from start to finish. Descriptive whether it be the beautiful surroundings or the grim murders this is a quality read.… (meer)

This started off strongly, but became increasingly sprawling and messy. It ended in a certain amount of ambiguity too, which seemed unnecessary: the plot could quite easily have been brought to a tight conclusion. As it was, there were too many victims to keep on top of, the chapters from the perspective of Michael (the social worker) would have been better given to the police, and the motivation of the killer was confused. Too many things were left unresolved, no one got nearly enough sleep to function, let alone investigate, and it was all a bit unsatisfactory somehow.… (meer)