The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Blue Monday, the first in a fantastic new series from the masters of psychological thrillers, Nicci French. Read by the actress Beth Chalmers.
Monday, the lowest point of the week. A day of dark impulses. A day to snatch a child from the streets...
The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein is left troubled: one of her patients has been relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew.
Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson doesn't take Frieda's concerns seriously until a link emerges with an unsolved abduction twenty years ago and he summons Frieda to interview the victim's sister, hoping she can stir hidden memories. Before long, Frieda is at the centre of the race to track the kidnapper. But her race isn't physical. She must chase down the darkest paths of a psychopath's mind to find the answers to Matthew Farraday's whereabouts. And sometimes the mind is the deadliest place to lose yourself.
©2011 Nicci French (P)2011 Penguin Books Ltd.
"This heart-stoppingly good tale sets the bar high for the next seven books - we can't wait to read them!" (Good Housekeeping)
"A brilliantly crafted new crime series." (Daily Mirror)
"Frieda.... is a strong creation, sympathetic but withholding and with hints of hidden facets." (Barry Forshaw, Daily Express)
"A mishmash of detection & pop-psychology"
I have enjoyed a number of these authors' books, but was sadly disappointed by this first book in a planned new series. The story meanders into unnecessary by-ways; depends on unbelievable co-incidences and pseudo psychology masquerading as science; and the senior detective on the case is a boor using the F-word all the time, which I'm sure in the real-world would be counter-productive.
The reader does a good job, but I won't be following this series.