Michael Wood

Unnecessary/cruel... detailed description of how + by what the killer's turned on! It feels like a blueprint/legitimization or at least helping with normalizing such pictures & and acts ??  

This left me wondering whether the author himself might be turned on by (rape) violence against women...

I absolutely do not approve of such unnecessary storytelling  - I had been debating hard whether to continue listening then. 

I didn't find the writing compelling and the plot a bit foreseeable (but maybe it's me, reading too many crime novels ;) in terms of identifying the killer. I thought the investigators were not being thorough enough there / not seeing through it or what was right in front of their eyes. However, once more, the truth is: The more diverse a team is and the better the communication within, the greater its success rate.

Three points that left me angry:

1. The witness who refused to testify (for so long!)
2. Matilda took the law into her own hands (no matter how understandable her feelings might be)
3. Nobody gave the female driver who (almost) crashed into them a second thought.
   Unsurprisingly, she's showing up at the very end - the "cliffhanger" won't work with me though.

Since this was my first (and last) Matilda Darke audiobook, I wondered why she's this wealthy - guessing readers of the earlier books could answer that. The thriller is a page-turner with likable protagonists but has too many downsides to it.

Well read by Stephanie Beattie.

"Gieriger Zorn" ist mein zweiter Teil der Matilda-Darke-Reihe, und wie schon der erste, den ich aus der Reihe gelesen habe, hat er mir gefallen.
Die Charaktere sind einfach sympathisch, und man freut sich jedesmal, ein bisschen Zeit mit ihnen zu verbringen.
Auch ist die Krimihandlung ganz gut gelungen und recht spannend, denn es ist natürlich für Krimiautoren nicht so einfach, jedesmal eine originelle Geschichte aus dem Hut zu zaubern, da das Genre mittlerweile doch sehr gut bedient wird.

Was an dem Buch ein wenig ist stört, ist, dass der Autor zu viele Fässer aufmacht und sich darüber hinaus auch noch auf Fälle bezieht, die in vorangegangenen Bänden behandelt wurden. So was mag ich als Leser von Krimis gar nicht. Für mich sollte jeder Band so lesbar sein, dass man kein Vorwissen braucht und man auch, ohne gespoilert zu werden, die Vorgängerbände lesen kann. Das ist hier leider nicht so gut gelungen.

Für Krimiliebhaber ist "Gieriger Zorn" ein Versuch wert!

It is the most disturbing crime scene Sheffield police have ever seen: three persons have literally been slaughtered at home. The morning after the wedding reception of their daughter Leah, Clive and Serena Mercer as well as their son Jeremy are attacked and brutally killed, only Jeremy’s daughter is spared, but she had to witness the crime. When DCI Matilda Darke and her team start the investigation, they soon realise that this case will not be easy to solve, apparently everybody loved the family of well-respected and highly admired doctors. There simply seems to be nobody with a motive and especially nobody to commit such a crime. Yet, forensics come up with an ID: Keith Lumb, arrested several times for petty burglary, left traces at the house, but could this man really be capable of a triple killing? And why should he do this? 

Michael Wood’s thriller “The Murder House” is a real page-turner. Once you start reading, the story doesn’t let go anymore and you keep on reading. The case is quite complex and the author brilliantly laid some wrong leads to keep you in the dark for a long time. In the end, however, it all makes sense and the pieces fall perfectly into place. A second plot line about a missing boy shifts focus at times, but also provides some suspense and is quite interesting from a psychological point of view.

Apart from the murder investigation, I liked the characters in the novel who seem quite authentic in the way they are presented and how they cope with the high demand of their job. They show different facets of their personality and all of them have their very own demons they have to fight with. However, they can also laugh and support each other, what I totally adored. 

An exciting thriller with a lot of suspense and a carefully crafted plot which leaves nothing else to wish for.