I picked up Scream for Me by Karen Rose from the book drop at work. I was in the mood for something lightweight and thrilling.

Following the death of his brother, Detective Vartanian finds a collection of photographs that indicate that, when much younger, his brother participated in the gang-rape of several young women. When he goes to Dutton to investigate the murder of a woman, he realises that this death is somehow connected to those events.

Alex Fallon’s sister has gone missing and she comes to Dutton to care for her small niece and to look for her sister. The police think she’s an addict and aren’t interested in looking for her. Fallon had a twin who was murdered when they were teenagers and the MO for the current crimes is very similar. It becomes clear that the murderer is trying to reveal the rapists from Fallon and Vartanian’s childhoods, and that several important people are implicated.

This has been a strangely hard review to write. Partly because it’s a while since I read the book and it hasn’t stuck very well in my mind, and partly because I didn’t have very strong feelings about it. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, even though I thought the plot was a bit predictable. There were elements in it that should have had a high emotional impact but somehow fell flat. I guess I never believed that any of the main characters were in danger of dying. The ones that died were the minor characters that hadn’t had enough page-time to get the reader invested in them. It’s ok for a palate cleanser, but didn’t engage me enough that I’d seek out more.