The Scavenger’s Daughter: A Tyler West Mystery / Mike McIntyre

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Thriller/Suspense

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words

Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: YES Paper: NO
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Journalist Mike McIntyre has worked as a travel and theatre columnist, and a feature writer, for major newspapers including the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, as well as contributing articles to many magazines. He has published two travel narratives, The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America and The Wander Year: One Couple’s Journey Around the World. McIntyre currently lives in San Diego.

Description:

Suspended by the San Diego Sun, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Tyler West is desperate for a career-saving scoop. After the murders of several powerful people in what the police call “unrelated” cases, Tyler investigates.

Appraisal:

The protagonist of The Scavenger’s Daughter, Tyler West, is convinced that a series of murders are the work of the same person. Frustrated by police and city leaders who insist the murders aren’t related, Tyler digs deeper and uncovers the common thread that nobody expects. A killer, who calls himself Friar Tom in tribute to the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, is committing each of the murders with a medieval torture device.

I found The Scavenger’s Daughter to be one of those books I didn’t want to put down. It was fast-paced and never apparent what was coming next. At times, it seemed everyone was working against Tyler, which brought out my natural instinct to root for the underdog. A secondary story thread, offering the possibility for Tyler to redeem a past mistake by rekindling a romance, also helps make Tyler a sympathetic character and ties in well with the main story line. Thrillers don’t get much more intense than this.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five stars