2021/116: The Naturalist -- Andrew Mayne

2021/116: The Naturalist -- Andrew Mayne

I have to remind myself this isn’t some professional dispute in a journal over the results of a research paper. Two girls were murdered, and maybe many, many more. My goal is simply truth. I have to take my ego out of this. [p. 167]

There are more than enough femicides in the news, so why read fictional versions? I tend to avoid novels about serial killers who prey on young women, yet I did find The Naturalist readable, well-plotted and surprisingly sympathetic. To be fair, I made an incorrect assumption based on the sample chapters -- I thought the Big Bad would be supernatural -- and by the time I realised I was wrong, I'd been drawn into the story, and intrigued by the character of Professor Theo Cray, computational biologist and social misfit. ( Read more... )