Review - Your Deepest Fear by David Jackson

Review - Your Deepest Fear by David Jackson

Sara! Remember! Victoria and Albert. All I can say. They're here. They're-'

These are the last words Sara Prior will ever hear from her husband.

DS Nathan Cody is about to be drawn into the darkest and most twisted case of his career. And things are about to get very, very personal.

Your Deepest Fear is the first book I've read by David Jackson, so I was coming in with no idea about DS Cody's background or history. Despite this, I found it easy to get into this novel. There was enough recapped for me to quickly realise some of the past trauma that had affected Cody, without giving away too much of any plots from earlier books if I choose to go back and read them.

The plot of Your Deepest Fear is really quite exciting. There's some really nasty bad guy playing games with DS Cody, having a lot of fun manipulating him, testing him with moral dilemmas, and generally making him jump through hoops for his own amusement. At the same time there's been a really brutal murder he's trying to investigate, and he's also being assessed by a psychologist to see if he is fit for duty. The murder victim's wife has her own story going on, as she tries to investigate possible gangland links to the murder without involving the police. There's a lot going on, but it is all tied together really well, with the different threads crossing and tangling together in some really interesting ways.

It was the two main POV characters I really had a problem with. DS Cody is completely unhinged, coming apart dangerously, lying to his psychologist, his boss and his partner and making some ethical decisions that aren't just questionable, they're just plain illegal. Meanwhile we have Sara delivering her own brand of vigilante justice across Bootle. This isn't so much a police procedural as a police throw the procedure out of the window and go totally rogue! And in this book, at least, there's no consequences to face. Everything works out nicely for our lone wolf cop. 

Also, while our main characters are going rogue, the rest of the police seem to be doing absolutely nothing to investigate this brutal murder. I think they interview the guy's boss three times, and one of his co-workers twice, mostly asking about knitwear, but there's no other evidence of any police investigation and instead things get left to our vigilante to solve. 

Honestly, I think I've just had enough of seeing rogue police who refuse to follow the rules and get results through illegal methods getting rewarded in crime fiction. There should be a bit more accountability.

An exciting plot, but with deeply flawed characters that left a bad taste.

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Your Deepest Fear by David Jackson is out now, published by Bonnier Zaffre.

I was given a review copy via Netgalley in return for an honest review.