Birthdays for the Dead

Someone has been grabbing young girls, torturing them, and taking photos of the torture.  He then mails photos of the progression of the torture to the parents on the child's birthday.  DC Ash Henderson has been assigned to the case and to help him he has been given a criminal psychologist, Dr. Alice McDonald.  She is afraid of air travel, and going too fast in a car in case either crashes, however, she becomes competent when dealing with the victim's parents.  For Henderson, the investigation is personal.

A number of bodies have been found in an abandoned park.  Dr. McDonald thinks that it is weird that the killer is abandoning the bodies in this fashion.  It doesn't seem orderly to her.  She also questions why a twelve year old (one of the victims) would have a shelf full of first edition books, worth thousands. 

Each birthday of the missing child the parents receive a birthday card from " The Birthday Boy".  Some of the parents have moved, yet they still receive the birthday card.  How is  The Birthday Boy able to find out their new address?  McDonald creates a prfile and together she and Henderson come up with a potential suspect.  But how can they prove it?

Things turn for the worse when Henderson's youngest daughter disappears.  Has she been taken, too, or is she just acting up?  No, she too, has become a victim of the Birthday Boy!

Stuart MacBride's latest novel is a dark one.  The story is intense and demanding of the reader.  It reminded me very much of the dark novels of Ian Rankin's 'Rebus'.  Although there is a lot of gratuitous violence, I found it to be a good read.