Detective Constable Ash Henderson has a dark secret…
Five years ago his daughter, Rebecca, went missing on the eve of her thirteenth birthday. A year later the first card arrived: homemade, with a Polaroid picture stuck to the front – Rebecca, strapped to a chair, gagged and terrified. Every year another card: each one worse than the last.
The tabloids call him ‘The Birthday Boy’. He’s been snatching girls for twelve years, always in the run-up to their thirteenth birthday, sending the families his homemade cards showing their daughters being slowly tortured to death.
But Ash hasn’t told anyone about Rebecca’s birthday cards – they all think she’s just run away from home – because if anyone finds out, he’ll be taken off the investigation. And he’s sacrificed too much to give up before his daughter’s killer gets what he deserves…
Rating: 3 Stars
So I've been waiting impatinetly for a while to read this book, mainly because the blurb gripped me straight away. I was therefore a little disappointed that it took me until about two thirds of the way into the book for me to start enjoying it.
In the first thirty or so pages I was seriously considering putting this down and not even returning to it. This was mainly because I just didn't like the characters at all. The main character Ash Henderson just annoyed me, and then the way the 'delightfully quirky' Alice (or Dr McFruitloop as she's more commonly known) would just babble on got boring very quickly.
And then I had a serious question to ask which was never resolved in the books. The Birthday Boy sends cards showing the torture of the girls to their parents every year, even following them when they try and move house. However in the case of Ash's eldest daughter, the cards are only ever sent to Ash, and not to his ex wife Michelle at all. Now if you're going to go to all the trouble of finding out where the parents live every year then why not send the cards to both parents?
However the one thing that really really bugged me was that given Rebecca's fate, we know right from the off that she has been dead for years, MacBride should have left Ash's younger daughter Katie well alone. While a book can be dark, it shouldn't be that dark. Now obviously I won't reveal Katie's fate but that was one thing I really didn't enjoy about the book.
On the other hand though, by the time I got into Birthdays for the Dead it was a thoroughly enjoyable read. And MacBride manages to tie up all the loose ends together as well, and keep us guessing as to the true identity of the Birthday Boy right until the end.
Would I recommend this book? If you don't mind a darkish story with some tedious repetition at the beginning then you'll probably enjoy Birthdays For The Dead. If you persevere with this book you'll find it an enjoyable read in the end.
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