THE HELPER

Called to the scene of a grisly murder New York cop Callum Doyle finds his own cell phone number scrawled on the victim’s arm; that’s just the start of his troubles.

Then the taunting phone calls start, the killer is willing to feed Doyle clues as to his identity and that of his next victim, but only so long as he keeps the information to himself. As the body count rises Doyle must face a terrifying dilemma, can he outsmart his ‘helper’ before he kills again and keep his badge.

Out of materiel that stretches his readers credibility David Jackson has created an original and at times unsettling novel. Brilliant, but dysfunctional, killers are ten a penny and so it takes imagination and not a little nerve to deliver a book featuring one that genuinely takes its audience by surprise.

In the tradition of vintage mystery novels he gives all the clues to the reader straight on the nose, usually through playing on the wording of a song title, only to find a way of leaving them as baffled as his hapless hero. To this Jackson adds a thoroughly modern understanding of the growing gulf between the people who use technology and those people who live through it, the latter group, of course, having the power to use their superior skills for good or ill.

This highly accomplished thriller is well worth reading, even though doing so may mean you never feel comfortable sitting in front of your webcam again; after all you never know who might be watching or why.