The Slaughter Man

The Slaughter Man by Tony Parsons

Published by Arrow

21st April 2016

Paperback Edition

On New Year’s Day, a wealthy family is found slaughtered inside their exclusive gated community in north London, their youngest child stolen away.

The murder weapon – a gun for stunning cattle before they are butchered – leads Detective Max Wolfe to a dusty corner of Scotland Yard’s Black Museum devoted to a killer who thirty years ago was known as the Slaughter Man.

But the Slaughter Man has done his time, and is now old and dying. Can he really be back in the game?

And was the murder of a happy family a mindless killing spree, a grotesque homage by a copycat killer – or a contract hit designed to frame a dying man?

All Max knows is that he needs to find the missing child and stop the killer before he destroys another innocent family – or finds his way to his own front door …

This is the second outing for DC Max Wolfe following his introduction in The Murder Bag back in 2015.  I think that if you enjoyed the first novel then you are bound to feel the same way about the second as it's much of the same thing.  A wealthy family are found murdered in their home on New Year's Day and it is up to Wolfe to find out who did it.  The only curious thing is that the family's youngest son appears to be missing from the crime scene.  As you can probably guess, this killing is only the first in the book and soon Max Wolfe is on the hunt for a serial killer. 

Coupled with too many acronyms for my liking again, the book weaves its way through the underbelly of the crime gangs of London as well as with Wolfe's relationship with his ex-wife and daughter Scout.  I think it is this side of the story that actually endears me to the books and stops them being solely focussed on gang-crime.  It's a crime thriller that will take up a few hours of your time and what's the harm in that?

Happy Reading

Miss Chapters x