#BookReview ‘Dog Rose Dirt’ by Jen Williams

Psychological Thriller

About the book…

When prodigal daughter Heather Evans returns to her family home after her mother’s baffling suicide, she makes an alarming discovery–stacks and stacks of carefully preserved letters from notorious serial killer Michael Reave. The “Red Wolf,” as he was dubbed by the press, has been in prison for over twenty years, serving a life sentence for the gruesome and ritualistic murders of several women across the country, although he has always protested his innocence. The police have had no reason to listen, yet Heather isn’t the only one to have cause to re-examine the murders. The body of a young woman has just been found, dismembered and placed inside a tree, the corpse planted with flowers. Just as the Red Wolf once did.

What did Heather’s mother know? Why did she kill herself? And with the monstrous Red Wolf safely locked inside a maximum security prison, who is stalking young women now? Teaming up with DI Ben Parker, Heather hopes to get some answers for herself and for the newest victims of this depraved murderer. Yet to do that, she must speak to Michael Reave herself, and expose herself to truths she may not be ready to face. Something dark is walking in the woods, and it knows her all too well.

Published on July 22nd by Harper Collins, I am so excited to have been approved to read this stand alone, serial killer novel,‘Dog Rose Dirt’ by author Jen Williams, most famously known for her best selling fantasy novels.

This is a change of pace but Jen totally owns this thriller/horror based story as she weaves a dark, compelling fairy tale which takes folkloric tropes and turns them on their head.

How much of what makes you you, is genetic and how much is acquired? A re-appearance of an errant,grownup daughter into the life of her deceased mother has Heather re-assessing her entire existence.

Apart from the really bizarre circumstances surrounding her mother’s death, the atmosphere of the village where she has lived feels both caught in a time warp and also underpinned by some really dark local legends.

As she begins sorting out her mother’s effects, Heather’s profession of investigative journalist kicks in and she starts dissecting the paperwork that was left behind and makes the astonishing discovery that her mother was writing to an infamous serial killer, known as the Red Wolf.

Now behind bars for the rest of his life, the gruesome details of his killing are there for anyone to read about so, when the murders start again not long after she arrives back home, Heather begins to doubt absolutely everything that she held to be true.

What links does her past have with the commune which was run in the 1960’s ? Why do the woods both compel her to wander them, whilst also terrifying her?

More and more details are unearthed about a completely different person that Heather cannot recognise as her mother, and,as reflection and introspection threaten a fragile sense of self, presents begin to be left on her doorstep, and then, inside her house…

Is Heather about to become the latest victim of the Red Wolf? Is it a copycat killer or was the wrong person locked away?

This is a terrifying novel that examines the red riding hood myth from a mirror direction-the wolf is wearing the red hood this time around and the power of the feminine in the form of women who stepped outside the norm and expected roles, in the 1960’s is explored in depth. The notion of nature versus nurture and how you grow into the person you are expected to be, as opposed to the person you are supposed is so very interestingly explored here.

Yes, it is a serial killer novel and there are some gruesome descriptions of the murders committed but, at heart, this is a deeply feminist novel on the way that women are subsumed, devoured and returned to the earth to feed a system which ultimately betrays them.

Heather ends up in her old childhood bedroom, with a career hanging on a knife edge, an air of disappointment hanging over all she has achieved whilst her school friends are all well established and settled in their chosen fields. The expectations versus the reality of life in a small town or village is keenly explored as she is viewed in her homestead as someone who has ‘failed’. Her idea to write about the murders could be seen as a way to revive her writing career based on a patriarchal narrative which exploits and ultimately destroys the young, the beautiful victims of the Red Wolf. Her path out of the small time is seemingly dictated to her by a serial killer who wants to talk only to her, but who is exploiting whom?

The killer, safely behind bars, the male detective using her to get details out of Michael, or the new killer who seems to have taken her arrival to start his ‘games’ again?

A twisting, breathlessly turning story which keeps you well and truly on your toes, it completely fires on all cyclinders and whether Jen is dipping her toes in this genre or intends to stick around for a while, ‘Dog Rose Dirt’ will, I predict, be huge.

About the author…

Jen Williams lives in London with her partner and their small ridiculous cat. Having been a fan of grisly fairy tales from a young age, these days Jen writes dark unsettling thrillers with strong female leads, as well as character-driven fantasy novels with plenty of adventure and magic. She has twice won the British Fantasy Award for her Winnowing Flame trilogy, and when she’s not writing books she works as a bookseller and a freelance copywriter.