Five boys have been abducted and murdered in London and the police don't seem to be getting very far with their investigations but eleven year old Barney Roberts has been keeping track of events with a police-style wall chart and feels he can begin to see a pattern emerging. He doesn't really want to acknowledge it though because it points a little too close to home....
Like This, For Ever is part tense psychological thriller and part police procedural, and I found it unfolded a little unevenly. The story is told from three different points of view - Barney's, his on-leave policewoman neighbour's and that of the investigating police team. Add to this interspersed extracts from an interview between a psychiatrist and the murderer (after his capture) and there's a lot of different angles to get your head round, especially as the police characters seem to have been picked up mid-story-line following on presumably from a previous book. I don't normally mind picking up a series part way through but this time it proved a drawback. So many of the characters had history with each other but not having met them before, I found it really hard to care about them and their personal problems - and wished a lot of the time that they'd just get back to doing some police work and crime solving!
Barney's storyline, on the other hand, was compelling reading. Although some of the incidents surrounding him and his friends seemed a little far-fetched, and sometimes I had difficulty believing how young they were, his story gradually built in tension as he was forced to face the facts that bothered him.
Maryom's review - 3.5 stars
Publisher - Corgi/Transworld
Genre - adult crime, psychological thriller,
Buy Like This, For Ever
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