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

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There is a gruesome torture scene later in the book, which reminded me of my avoidance of male-authored crime novels which seem to do this more often than female-authored books. 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!

Next we meet DS Nathan Cody at work in the Major Investigation Team who has just found out one of his old girlfriends has joined the team, even better they are to be partners – now that’s not awkward is it? From the bestselling author of Cry Baby, the beginning of a brilliant and gripping police procedural series set in Liverpool, perfect for fans of Peter James and Mark Billingham. It seemed like this book was trying to emulate Stuart MacBride's Logan McRae series, which is what I was hoping for (Logan's groans are kind of funny), but Jackson needs to stop writing like he's being paid by the word. I get that the long-winded set-ups and moment-by-moment description of characters' actions were meant to create drama and suspense, but I just found them tedious.After wondering how much the different threads are going to intersect in the end, you find that a significant plot line is just a set up for book 2.

But, later in the story when it becomes clear just what it all meant it became even more disturbing and looking back it's quite impressive how this story was told, and I can't imagine there will be a single reader that will fully work out where this story is heading.The whole premise of the birds was interesting at first, especially the first tapping at the door, taken from Poe and giving the novel its title. 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.

There was one particular scene recounted later on that was particularly nasty which I had to admit made me feel slightly queasy – and I’m a hardened crime fan! It's not just because I am from Liverpool that I was such a fan of the scene setting in A Tapping at My Door, but it's because of how brilliantly it was all done. Now Cody doesn’t only have to find out who the murderer is that is brutal killing his colleagues, he also has to find a way to cope with his own demons. In fact most of the characterisations are excellent – from Cody’s damaged and troubled soul to the almost motherly concern of his chief, DCI Stella Blunt, and the common sense of Webley. We are never bogged down with too much of the procedure and instead just remain at the heart of the action with various asides where the story is allowed to slow down to allow our main characters time to digest exactly what is happening, whilst at the same time try and deal with what's going on in their own lives.And so to Raven Crime Reads for the next stop on the blog tour marking the release of David Jackson’s fifth book, A Tapping At My Door. 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.