Someone is murdering children in South Birmingham, England, and it's to a child that a detective turns for help solving the case in Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney's debut thriller, a first-rate character-based creep-out with literary chops.
It's 1981, and late one night, 14-year-old Ava Bonney goes outside to check on her "secret roadkill body farm," which she created "to feed her curiosity about dead things." There she finds the body of 14-year-old Mickey Grant, who has been missing for two weeks; there are human bite marks on his forearm. Not wanting to get in trouble for being out at night, Ava anonymously reports the death to the police. Working the case is Detective Sergeant Seth Delahaye of the West Midlands Police, who, through the course of making neighborhood inquiries, meets Ava, unaware that she phoned in Mickey's murder. Ava demonstrates to Delahaye an understanding of criminal minds that will be of use to him when the murderer strikes again.
Ava is an indelible creation: she's precocious--Delahaye notes her expertise in skeletal anatomy--but never cute. "We are our bones," she tells him. And while Ava is alert to the unfairness of her squalid home life, she won't be defined by it. Delahaye, a gentle loner, is a singular character as well, but Deadly Animals is Ava's story. Mystery fans will likely prefer its first half, when the killer's identity isn't yet apparent, but horror fans and anyone who values sharp writing (and has a strong stomach) should appreciate it all. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer