I would like to thank Simon & Schuster and Random Things Tours for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Simon & Schuster

Published – Out Now

Price – £16.99 hardback £8.99 eBook

ONCE UPON A TIME LIKE YOU'VE NEVER READ IT BEFORE . . .
 
DI Lyla Rondell is on the case of a lifetime. Tasked with investigating a series of perplexing deaths, the only lead she has is that each appears to be based on a different classic fairy tale. Far from the stuff of bedtime stories, the press is having a field day with what they have named the Grimm Ripper Murders.
 
But as the bodies stack up, Lyla’s whole world is about to flip on its head. Because the killer’s bloody trail stretches deep into her own origin story, and when she discovers the truth, nothing will ever be the same again.
 
Faced with the fact that everything she knows is fiction, Lyla will have to take a little creative license of her own if she’s going to turn the final page on the killings . . . 

While I like crime novels and the odd TV drama I steer clear of true crime. That for me feels intrusive. Is there not a hypocrisy that I enjoy crime when its heavily diluted, re-written with better characters and plot than the tawdry tales of reality TV? Is my urge to be an observer and likely detective not the dame as the fans of those dramas. I’m not sure but its an intriguing question to ask myself and in AK Benedict’s very unusual crime thriller (and much more) Little red Death we explore the boundaries of fact and fiction in a series of interesting ways.

Katie also known as the author KT Hexen awakes groggily to find herself a prisoner of a man she calls only the Wolf. He has a simple deal for her write fairy tale based murders he can then enact in real life…or she too will die. Meanwhile DI Lyla Rondell finds her small team called into investigate a potential kidnapping that reminds her of the mystery from her childhood that set on her on the detective path. The two women’s lives are intricately bound, and the connections are far stranger than anyone will think.

This is a book hard to go into too much detail but let’s be clear this is not your average crime thriller. We have the standard mysterious villain with a odd set of crimes – his fairy tale obsession leaves him to be known as the Grimm Reaper by the press and the crimes are macabre and strange. Lyla is your standard troubled detective with a PAST and yet there is a little something in the book’s first half that feels off. We have stories within stories, puns a plenty, KT Hexen’s breezy style and footnotes are playful and poke a few publishing in-jokes about editing. It doesn’t quite lie up with the usual procedural style. This sense of the weird grows and grows and then comes the big reveal…which I can’t; tell you much about!

What I can say in the second half more fantastical elements come into play. Indeed, this case is a lot stranger and the characters do indeed have unusual secrets. What this tale then explores is the battle between gritty crime and telling an entertaining story. Are characters just cannon fodder for our enjoyment or should we have some care to them as well Creating people as fairy tales ancient or contemporary has repercussions and says something about us. We don’t mind a cautionary tale provided we are entertained. Overall, I enjoyed it and what the story then does fits a very fine tradition of making us looks at how stories are created and used but some readers more used to crime may find it a shock to the system but keep an open mind and you’ll have fun!