The Genius Killer - Mark Robson - ★★★
AUTHOR: Mark Robson
NARRATOR: Anna Wilson-Hall
SERIES: Tex Deacon Series, #1
GENRE: Crime Thriller-Drama.
RATING: 3 stars.
In a Nutshell: A dramatic thriller peeking into the mind of a psychopath. Turned out much different from what I had thought, so I was the wrong reader for this. To those interested in true crime, this might be an impressive novel as the crime details are rooted in actual cases.
Story Synopsis:
Cumbria, England. Karl Jackson has headed the chemistry department at the local school since almost two decades. He is married and has a nineteen-year-old son. This is what the public knows. What they don’t know is that Karl is also a serial killer, who has used his “genius” and his knowledge of chemicals as deadly weapons multiple times.
Tex Deacon is a Detective Chief Inspector with many years of experience in murder and killer profiling. After his beloved wife’s death due to an unexpected illness a year ago, he hasn’t been able to overcome his grief. When his boss Chief Inspector Barbara Bracewell asks him to conduct a training session for newbies, Tex doesn’t know that he will soon stumble upon some challenging deaths that might not be random killings. Using his experience, he has to make sure that the killer(s) are nabbed. But how? Aiding him indirectly in his enquiry is newbie reporter Debbie Pilkington.
The story comes to us from the third person perspective of the above three characters, though a major chunk is dominated by Karl and Ted.
Bookish Yays:
❤ Unlike the usual norm in this category, the story begins with the killer, and keeps him as the most dominant voice of the three narrative perspectives. So right from Chapter 1, we know that Karl is a murderer, and that he delights in his skill. It is an unnerving yet novel experience.
❤ Hearing from Karl also gives us an insight into how the mind of a psychopath functions. Seeing him plan his kills and execute them without an iota of guilt gave me the creeps. (I hope to God this book does not reach the hands of any real-life psychopath, because they will get so many ideas from it!)
❤ The story is set in the heart of the Lake District, and it makes great use of the locale, especially of the mountains, to enhance the disturbing scenes.
❤ Through Karl’s personality and Tex’s investigative methods, the book raises some interesting points about the age-old nature vs. nurture debate. The psychological insights into Karl’s behaviour are complemented by Tex’s propensity to use Stoic philosophy as an investigative aid.
❤ There are plenty of references to actual crimes and the killers' modus operandi. These add a grim authenticity to the plot.
❤ The ending, though not satisfying in the traditional sense, was stunning. The perfect end to this kind of story, leaving you yearning for more. I really loved it.
Bookish Mixed Bags: (Some of these points might be Yays to other readers.)
🔴 While the book is described as a psychological thriller, I didn’t experience it as one, because, though there were plenty of murders, the adrenaline rush never came, and the pace also stayed relatively slow. Once I changed track and read it as a ‘true-crime inspired drama’, it worked slightly better for me. (‘Slightly’ because I am not fond of reading/watching true crime – I prefer having my head under the sand when it comes to knowing about how deviant human beings can become. ☹)
🔴 Karl has a tendency of being abusive and insulting in his remarks about people's looks. His description of people mostly involves an offensive element such as someone resembling a rhino or a walrus or old roadkill. This made me very uncomfortable, but I am giving the book the benefit of doubt because this derogatory approach is an indicator of the character’s base personality.
🔴 There is detailed animal abuse to establish Karl’s character as a barbaric psychopath. So the content is justified by the intent. But oh God, it was horrible to read! I simply can’t stand animal abuse and all those scenes left me queasy. 😓 The crime scenes are written in excruciating detail, which further enhanced my discomfort. Again, they serve the book, so their inclusion is probably justified.
🔴 It is very clear that the book was written with a great deal of research. Honestly, if I ever need to kill anyone using poisons, all I need is this book as a reference! There is a lot of information on how a murder can committed. This feature works as a double-edged sword. The information goes into overkill many a time, almost making the scene feel more like a documentary or an expository essay than a fictional novel. It also kills the pace of the book.
🔴 I couldn’t connect with the writing style. The story unfolds using a combination of actual events, inner thoughts, journal entries, police case notes and so on. However, these sources aren’t always compartmentalised clearly, and also break the flow of the actual timeline. A single scene might slide into multiple narrative sources (say, public speech – flashback – back to speech - journal – inner thoughts – case notes), some of which are marked by italics. The narration felt omniscient, as if someone were telling us Karl's story rather than our viewing the events through his eyes. It also hops across multiple characters, sometimes within the same paragraph. Those not particular about the stylistic writing choices might not find all this an issue, but I found them very distracting.
Bookish Nays:
❌ I was hoping that with a detective as one of the main characters, the investigative writing would be like that of a police procedural, a genre I really enjoy. However, most of the investigation unfurls through dialogues. Karl’s action sequences (the murders, abuse, and so on) happen on page. But Tex’s potential action sequences (crime scene analysis, forensic reports, autopsies, and so on) are off the page and revealed mainly through future conversations. I’d have loved the investigation to be as “active” as the crimes.
❌ While we get an extended look at Karl’s character, there is no scene depicting him in his school, say about how he is perceived by his teaching colleagues or about his rapport, if any, with his students. This was a major lacuna in his character portrayal, as there would have been a lot to explore about how a psychopath and closet killer could have such a lengthy teaching career and interact regularly with young students without any red flags.
❌ Debbie the journalist hardly has any role to play though she is prominent in the blurb. I would have loved to hear more from her as the only somewhat strong main female character in this male-dominated book. Chief Constable Bracewell was also a great character but in too limited a role.
🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at 11 hrs 22 min, is narrated by Anna Wilson-Hall. I have no complaints about her performance. She uses varied accents and pitches to help us distinguish the characters. However, I am not sure why a woman narrator was chosen to narrate a book that has most of the story coming from male characters’ points of view.
I have heard more than 300 audiobooks over the last 2.5 years. To date, only one audiobook had stumped me by its complicated structure, which forced me to put that book into the DNF pile despite its appealing storyline. (I do mean to read its digital version someday.) “The Genius Killer” ended up becoming my second audio DNF. I was most grateful to have access to the digital copy as well, because I couldn’t grasp the story accurately from the audio version, despite reaching the 30% mark twice over. This was mainly because the narrative perspective jumped across characters and timelines. Karl's narration switched regularly between his present and his journal entries, and Tex’s also jumped between his present and his earlier cases. The plethora of plot aids (journals, newspaper entries, research notes,…) added to the complication, especially as these weren’t in separate chapters/sections but blended within the main timeline. Other readers have found the audio version excellent, so it definitely worked for some people. But it wasn’t for me.
All in all, while the book has its merits, I was the wrong reader for the content. True crime has never been a topic of interest for me, and the somewhat jumpy writing style ensured my disconnect. I also expected a police procedural from the blurb, so the slow-paced dramatic storytelling didn’t work much for me. If you are a fan of true crime and aren’t fanatical about writing style, this book will work at a much better level. Mine is clearly an outlier opinion, so please read the other reviews before you take a call on this adventurous work. I am hitting the midway rating as many of the issues were because of my personal reading preferences.
My thanks to Zooloo’s Book Tours and author Mark Robson for a complimentary digital and audio ARC of “The Genius Killer”, and for allowing me to be a part of this blog tour. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
The digital version of this book is currently available free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
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Blurb:
The dark heart of a brilliant and ruthless psychopath.
A celebrated but haunted detective.
A determined young reporter hunting for justice - and the big story.
Karl Jackson is a particularly vengeful sociopath with his unique way of 'problem-solving’. DCI Tex Deacon suffers from the trauma of his beloved wife's death and finds it immensely difficult to come to terms with it. As a Detective Chief Inspector specialising in murder and killer profiling, Tex has a relentless workload from his base on the edges of the mountains of the Lake District.
Tex is under pressure from his superiors to take a step back to grieve properly. It’s clear that Susan’s death has ripped out part of his soul. There is no doubt that Tex is suffering, but this DCI is a driven man. Tex’s welfare is the responsibility of his boss Chief Constable Barbara Bracewell, and she and Tex go back a very long way. However, Bracewell must do what is right for Tex and the Cumbrian police force.
Despite falling into a mental abyss, Tex’s instincts for the hunt never leave him. A hyper-intelligent and devious murderer appears in his crosshairs – the self-styled ‘Genius Killer’. So what will Tex do? What can he get away with doing with the Chief Constable monitoring his every move?
And then there’s Debbie Pilkington, a tenacious and hugely ambitious cub reporter at the local paper – The Rimpton Chronicle. Debbie has big stories and a big future in her own sights. A young journalist, a craggy and vastly experienced detective, and one of the most dangerous serial killers Britain has even seen. Their lives were about to intertwine. The chase to stop a cunning killer begins. Tex is a master at breaking down the thinking processes of those he hunts but with Tex enduring his own psychological meltdown, can he penetrate the mind of this supremely malevolent psychopath?
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Author Mark Robson:
I've been a journalist and broadcaster for over forty years working almost exclusively in sport. I was employed for fifteen years by SKY Sports, eleven years by the BBC, and three years by UTV. Elsewhere I have worked on significant national contracts for ITV, Eurosport and Viaplay Sport and have freelanced for many top class broadcasters like BT and NEP. I have been involved in BAFTA and Sony award winning programmes. For the last number of years I have focused on rugby, my main sporting passion, as a commentator and reporter with SKY, as well as Premier Sport and, formerly, Setanta Sport and Eirsport. I’ve commentated on four Rugby World Cups and two football World Cups and covered the Olympics in Sydney in 2000. I was working on the Six Nations Rugby as a commentator for NEP when all sport stopped due to the corona virus pandemic, so, after some persuasion from my then girlfriend Petra, I decided to write my first novel.
The seed for the novel came from a comment made to me by a senior member of the fell running community who knew well many members of the amazing, life saving Mourne Mountain Rescue Team in Northern Ireland. We were out for a fell run one day and were talking about the thousands of rescues Mourne Mountain Rescue had carried out. Out of the blue my craggy companion whispered, "If you want to commit murder - and get away with it - the mountains are the perfect place to do it."
Fell running has been a passion for me. I’ve run over a hundred races and competed in many navigation focused Mourne Mountain Marathons. Unbelievably, for me, I managed to crawl to the finish line in a couple of 50 mile Ultra races. One was in the Addo Elephant Safari Park in the Zuurberg mountains in South Africa and the other was the Grand Raid des Pyrenees. I was rubbish - always one of the stumblers right at the back of the field! I’ve hiked in the Andes, the Blue Mountains, the Picos de Europa, the Alps and other ranges around the globe so no surprise then that quite a bit of ‘The Genius Killer’ is set in the mountains. In this case the magnificent peaks of the Lake District.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markrobsonauthor/
Check out this book:
Buy Link: https://mybook.to/geniuskiller-zbt
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This has been a stop on the #TheGeniusKiller blog tour conducted by Zooloo's Book Tours. (@ZooloosBookTours on Insta) Thanks for stopping by!
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