Book Review: Birdman by Mo Hayder ★★★★☆
The first book in the Jack Caffery Series is a banger, and it made me fall in love with both the character and the author.
The crime in itself is brutal and disgusting, and the author doesn't mince the details. I really liked the procedural aspects and the detailed descriptions of the forensic inquest, but it's not for everyone. Hayder doesn't fade to black, not during the autopsies, not during the murders, not when we are in the criminals' heads.
The pacing is addicting but not too fast that it feels rushed. And the criminal case is woven into the main character's life. And, in my opinion, that is the strongest point of the book: DI Jack Caffery.
Jack is a detective in his mid-thirties who, as expected, has a dark past full of trauma; he can't sustain a romantic relationship and is a borderline alcoholic. He refuses to leave his childhood home, from where his brother was abducted over 20 years ago by the pedophile neighbour. Jack keeps his and his brother's old room ("Ewan's room") filled with files and stuff he had scavenged from the neighbour's trash. He is obsessed.
He is also smart and dogged, a profiler who is attractive enough that all women in the story want him on some level. (Mo Hayder mentioned at the end of the third book that she was surprised and yet not that so many readers find Jack sexy, but that is the default mode for any heterosexual woman in the books, too.)
On paper, he sounds flat, but Hayder is talented enough to make him human, both in his flaws (and he has many) and in his virtues. Jack feels real, and I could not help but feel for him and empathise with him. He'll get worse as the series progresses, but I still couldn't look away from him.
The crimes of the Birdman will live rent-free in my head for a long time, but Jack will be there forever.
