Perfect Silence - Helen Fields

Reading Challenge Category: Fourth book in the series

Official Blurb:

When silence falls, who will hear their cries?
The body of a young girl is found dumped on the roadside on the outskirts of Edinburgh. When pathologists examine the remains, they make a gruesome discovery: the silhouette of a doll carved in the victim’s skin.
DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach are struggling to find leads in the case, until a doll made of skin is found nestled beside an abandoned baby.
After another young woman is found butchered, Luc and Ava realise the babydoll killer is playing a horrifying game. And it’s only a matter of time before he strikes again. Can they stop another victim from being silenced forever – or is it already too late?

My Thoughts:

This is the fourth book in the DI Callanach and DCI Turner series, and oh my goodness, what a gruesome one it is.
The imagination of the author throughout this book was very questioning. The graphic detail of what the killer was doing to their victims was just atrocious. However, this made for fantastic reading, and I thank the author for having such a depraved mind!! If it’s too tame, I find it’s not gripping enough, whereas this I just couldn’t put down.
I felt like the balance between Callanach and Turner’s relationship and the investigation was well-balanced throughout this. They had gone off par in the last two books, but they were back to being friends, which added a nice layer into this story.
We don’t get to see inside the killer’s mind this time, but we did get some of the victim’s voices. This made it hard when one was not saved, but the other was. I found it hard to root for the second one after losing hope with the first; I suppose this was the aim?
Overall, this is turning out to be one of my favourite crime series yet, and this book gets a big fat five stars from me! I need to read some other books now that I have committed to, but I will be getting through them as quickly as possible so that I can read book five in this series!