The Scottish Writer James carol (1969) company this novel, Broken dolls, which breaks into the black scene quite successfully. The regulars of the genre, that we are a few and we have already read everything readable, can you write down this new proposal. And especially for a new character to add to the long list of brilliant investigators: Jefferson Winter.

I finished it last night and it hasn't lasted a week. On the first day, more than 150 pages fell at once, which is usually a very good sign of rhythm and addiction to history. Nothing better than ending the month of the dead with the feeling that there can be evil, madness and horror worse than death. 

Synopsis

Jefferson Winter is nothing ordinary. Neither as a researcher nor as a person. With a IQ way above average and one prodigious intuition, turns out to be son of one of America's most famous serial killers. He has spent his life trying to distance himself from the terrible inheritance of his blood and does everything he can to persecute those who are like his father. The beginning of the novel shows very well how it is marked by that blood.

He has a brilliant and successful career in the FBI as expert in psychological profiles. But he leaves it for his unorthodox methods. So is dedicated to traveling for help different police forces to solve the most complicated cases.

This time it is in London. A Scotland Yard inspector he already knew calls him to solve a grisly case that has everyone baffled: a psychopath has already kidnapped four women, torturing them for months. Leaves them free, but before makes sure they can't tell anything with a particularly cruel system: it practices them a lobotomy. Winter will have to use his privileged intelligence to catch the criminal before he can destroy another woman.

Jefferson Winter

Within the extensive gallery of investigators, detectives, inspectors and police from around the world, it is comforting to find yourself fresh air. Winter also carries it in that surname. And in her hair: white as snow since his adolescence. He used to wear a suit, spotless white shirts and a tie, that is, the typical uniform of an FBI agent. But now it's jeans, T-shirts, comfortable shoes, jackets and coats (ahem… He wants to sound like someone to me). It has a hard time with the cold and London is under a big snowstorm before Christmas.

Carol achieves immediate closeness to her character thanks to a first person narrator of the story. Does it in short chapters, that are almost shortened more by the rhythm and ease of prose. But it also endows its protagonist with that series of customs, rites or hobbies that can attract so much from a character. So there three conditions sine qua non that winter demands before accepting a case. Namely:

• Una hotel suite. No rooms. If you have to work and think to hunt monsters, you have to do it as comfortably as possible.
• Indispensable that the suite has a nice bottle of single malt whiskey (12 years or older).
• El case has to be interesting. But once he solves it, it is already forgotten by someone else.

We add that Winter he is a great music lover, plays the piano and his favorite composer is Mozart.

The case

Rachel Morris is married and knows that her husband is unfaithful to her. A blind date, arranged by internet, with a stranger that has made her forget her monotony takes her to meet him one night. But he meets the wolf in sheep's clothing. From an illusion he will go on to the worst nightmare of his life by becoming Number Five.

Winter and Mark Hatcher, the Scotland Yard inspector, they will investigate the cases of the previous victims, all of them living dead after the lobotomy practiced. Y all of them with husbands or partners who were also unfaithful. Will join them a beautiful and very intelligent agent, Sophia templeton, which will be paired with Winter. Throughout the novel the predictable sexual tension between the two and their dialogues are the best in the book.

I did not say anything. Silence is always the best option when a woman says she wants to talk to you.

Only with a few data Winter's intuition will start to work. The problem will be that their reasoning does not seem to bear much fruit. Perhaps this way of reasoning, with excessive self-confidence and superiority, can lead the reader to consider Winter a too arrogant smart-ass. But it may also be that we immediately like him. In addition, he knows how to win over anyone who wants to give him a hand and put those more arrogant than him in their place.

However the great balance of this novel is how Carol intersperses Winter's own narrative with that of the third person when she recounts the captivity and torture of Rachel Morris. The set maintains the horror and anticipation until the final climax, exciting and well resolved. It does not matter that everything may sound a little to us. I repeat that those of us who are very fond of the black genre have already been able to read almost everything of that whole. The point is that we find, or continue to discover, new voices or ways.

Why read it

Because lasts a sigh, with a well constructed and structured plot. Because winter is the smartest and coolest in the class. But it falls well. He thinks fast, has charm and knows how to carry the emotional weight what load.

This is the first title in the series that already consists of six novels. Hopefully they keep coming around here.