A review by brittany_tellefsen
The Butcher by Jennifer Hillier
4.0
Well this ended up being a crack-level addiction I was not expecting. I easily flew through this in 24 hours and did not want to stop!
**Quick Note: I listened to this via audio, and while the narrator was talented in the variety of voices he was able to perform, the voices he used were ridiculously annoying. Matt, one of the main characters, was given a very high-pitched, nasally, whiny voice that did not suit him at all, and all female characters were given that breathy, soft, stereotypical voice often used by male narrators. I was able to over come that, but it was highly annoying.
In 1985, then detective Edward Shank pulled the trigger of the gun that killed a man thought to be the Beacon Hill Butcher, the serial killer taunting Seattle. The take down made Edward's career, boosting him to Chief of Police where he remained until retirement.
Now, thirty years later, Shank is preparing to move himself into a retirement home and his grandson, Matt, a successful Seattle restauranteur, is moving back into Ed's Victorian home in a nice Seattle neighborhood. Matt was raised by Edward and his grandma, after his mom died at a very young age and now, the house his childhood home is officially his. So when he moves in, he starts renovations, making the house his own. But while doing so, he literally unearths a box of family secrets and what's inside, with turn his world upside down. The secret is so horrific, so gruesome, he struggles with whether he can tell anyone.
Meanwhile Matt's girlfriend, Sam, a published true-crime writer, is hard at work on her next book which will be all about the Beacon Hill Butcher, which is a personal case for Sam. Sam's mom was murdered in 1987 and though this occurred two years after the Butcher was killed, Sam has always believed the circumstances of her mom's death were too closely related to the Butcher's MO to be a coincidence. She believes the Butcher is still alive, and that the wrong man paid the price. And as she starts to dig deeper and uncover clues, she starts to come close to the secret Matt holds.
Told from the three separate perspectives of Edward, Matt, and Sam, we follow all three as the truth is revealed no matter the cost.
This was my first experience with Jennifer Hillier and it will certainly not be my last. I was hooked from the beginning (the end of that first chapter....holy cow!) and plowed my way through it whenever I could.
Hillier towed a great balance here between character-driven, and plot-driven narrative. As we are told the story through three perspectives, you come to know each character fairly well, understanding their personality, motive, and priorities. While I wouldn't necessarily say you truly connect with the characters, you definitely get enough to understand them which I appreciated.
I enjoyed how Hillier put the twist right up front with the story, so that you got that shock factor out of the way, and then waited to see how it all played out. There were, of course, a few other revelations thrown in throughout the story, but the main was definitely in that first chapter.
Overall, this was a solid read, different from anything else I have read in the genre, and I am looking forward to reading more from Hillier
**Quick Note: I listened to this via audio, and while the narrator was talented in the variety of voices he was able to perform, the voices he used were ridiculously annoying. Matt, one of the main characters, was given a very high-pitched, nasally, whiny voice that did not suit him at all, and all female characters were given that breathy, soft, stereotypical voice often used by male narrators. I was able to over come that, but it was highly annoying.
In 1985, then detective Edward Shank pulled the trigger of the gun that killed a man thought to be the Beacon Hill Butcher, the serial killer taunting Seattle. The take down made Edward's career, boosting him to Chief of Police where he remained until retirement.
Now, thirty years later, Shank is preparing to move himself into a retirement home and his grandson, Matt, a successful Seattle restauranteur, is moving back into Ed's Victorian home in a nice Seattle neighborhood. Matt was raised by Edward and his grandma, after his mom died at a very young age and now, the house his childhood home is officially his. So when he moves in, he starts renovations, making the house his own. But while doing so, he literally unearths a box of family secrets and what's inside, with turn his world upside down. The secret is so horrific, so gruesome, he struggles with whether he can tell anyone.
Meanwhile Matt's girlfriend, Sam, a published true-crime writer, is hard at work on her next book which will be all about the Beacon Hill Butcher, which is a personal case for Sam. Sam's mom was murdered in 1987 and though this occurred two years after the Butcher was killed, Sam has always believed the circumstances of her mom's death were too closely related to the Butcher's MO to be a coincidence. She believes the Butcher is still alive, and that the wrong man paid the price. And as she starts to dig deeper and uncover clues, she starts to come close to the secret Matt holds.
Told from the three separate perspectives of Edward, Matt, and Sam, we follow all three as the truth is revealed no matter the cost.
This was my first experience with Jennifer Hillier and it will certainly not be my last. I was hooked from the beginning (the end of that first chapter....holy cow!) and plowed my way through it whenever I could.
Hillier towed a great balance here between character-driven, and plot-driven narrative. As we are told the story through three perspectives, you come to know each character fairly well, understanding their personality, motive, and priorities. While I wouldn't necessarily say you truly connect with the characters, you definitely get enough to understand them which I appreciated.
I enjoyed how Hillier put the twist right up front with the story, so that you got that shock factor out of the way, and then waited to see how it all played out. There were, of course, a few other revelations thrown in throughout the story, but the main was definitely in that first chapter.
Overall, this was a solid read, different from anything else I have read in the genre, and I am looking forward to reading more from Hillier