A Tapping at My Door: A gripping serial killer thriller (The DS Nathan Cody series)

Product Information

Tapping at my Door by David Jackson | Follow DS Nathan Cody as he tries to catch a murderer who is targeting police officers in Liverpool. No missing or damaged pages, no creases or tears, no underlining or highlighting of text, and no writing in the margins. Since I was reading this in the dark, while home alone, I have no shame in admitting that it made me feel extremely nervous. Meanwhile he's been partnered with a former lover - now engaged - and his own PTSD driven explosive behavior has driven his own fiancé away for good.

He's such an intriguing and multi-layered character, and one who even after learning so much about in this first novel, is one that David Jackson will hopefully continue to explore alongside the main plot of each subsequent novel. Highly recommended for all readers of British crime fiction who like suspenseful, clever stories with extremely well-drawn characters. I thought he was really weird to start with until his personal demons were explained but I'm not sure the story benefited from that delay. It was the first crime novel I read in a while, and I really wanted to be swept away into a interesting murder investigation.The buildings are huge, Georgian town houses, with lots of story potential, as will become apparent in the series. For some reason, this ex can't let things go, though she behaves like an agony aunt, who actually makes matters worse.

The cause: the very tired cliches of pity/adore/fret over/misunderstand the exceptional man; and the women who have no real function as characters, beyond their nominal roles, except to be consumed by their relationship to the hero. The man endured some horrific events while working undercover and the scars are evident in his behaviour, even when he tries so hard to hide them. He adopts a female voice for the female characters, so it often sounds like the suspect is being interrogated by Mrs Brown's Liverpudlian sister. I was so totally engrossed in the plot from page one that I didn't even see where it was going until it slapped me in the face! I can't imagine what would possess the character to do this, and the explanation provided in the book was completely unbelievable.DS Nathan Cody is a new favourite detective of mine (I know, I keep adding new favourites to my list but that’s because there are so many great new books out there at the moment! There was a highly emotional ending to this crime thriller that I truly did not see coming and my heart literally missed a beat when I saw exactly where this plot had been heading. So begins a LOT of sturm and drang and major angst as Cody suffers nightmares and the occasional urge to hurt people - especially members of the local media, one of whom has a secret of his own which will provide a vital clue to the identity of the "Bird Killer" and the reason for his killing spree.