Rage Against The Dying - Becky Masterman

★★★★★

Read : February/March 2014

"In her hey-day, ex FBI Agent Brigid Quinn, not only worked serial killer cases but became their prize. Small and blond, from a distance she looked vulnerable and slight...the perfect bait to catch a killer. But as Quinn got older, she realised she needed to find a protegee, a younger field agent to take her place. So Quinn trains a twenty-two year old and lets her loose in the field. The plan works. Until the Route 66 killer not only takes the bait, but kills the bait too.
Years on, Quinn is trying to move past the fact that she has a young woman's death on her conscience. She's now the perfect Stepford Wife - until she gets a knock on her door. The girl's body has finally been discovered. Quinn is pulled back into the case and the more she learns about the killer the more she comes to believe, despite the overwhelming forensic evidence to hand, that they have the wrong man.."


Written in a 1st-person narrative, Rage Against The Dying, follows Brigid Quinn, a retired FBI Special Agent, as she is dragged kicking and screaming back into the world she has tried so hard to leave behind her. Now married to Carlo and doing the best impression she can of a 'Stepford Wife,' 59 year old Brigid finds herself being drawn back into the world of the FBI and risks losing her marriage in the process. An investigation she once headed up, the Route 66 Killer, and the case she also lost one of her own to, has made a sudden development...a man has been picked up at a checkpoint with suspicious things in his car and  has made an unnerving confession. But Brigid, and the new leader of the investigation, Laura Coleman, have doubts about how genuine this man's announcements are, something just doesn't sit quite right for them and as they both begin to dig a little deeper a whole can of worms begins to open up.

The first thing that drew me to Masterman's debut novel was Brigid. It's quite unusual to come across an older female lead within the crime genre, but to find a retired, 59-year-old living in the Suburb's is even rarer. Don't have any illusions that Brigid has lost her edge though. She may be slightly older and a little slower physically, but her instincts and abilities are as honed as they've always been. Brigid makes a brilliant character and narrator; she definitely lived up to the strong female lead that I hoped she would be. A lot of crime novels that I've read lately with female leads seem to rely on the men within the book to get them out of the tricky situations (a bit of a pet peeve of mine) but Brigid can sort her own messes out thank you very much. The parts of the novel that explore her marriage to Carlo may seem a little unnecessary at first, but it helps to reveal her vulnerable side and create a really rounded, believable and relateable character.

The prologue hooked me straight into the book and wouldn't let me loose until I'd gotten to the finale. We join Brigid in a highly dangerous situation; enclosed in the back of a van in a virtually deserted part of town with what seems to be a serial sexual predator and murderer. Then it stops, in the middle of the action, and you have no idea what will happen to Brigid. It's a really effective way of enticing the reader in and one of the best prologue's I've come across in quite a while; it made me feel like I had to read on to find out what the outcome was.

The novel skits between the present and the past events that lead up to it. It's done well and, as it's narrated by Brigid, seems natural that there would be a fair amount of looking back, especially over the death of Jessica (Brigid's protege) which she blames herself in part for. There is also some exploration in past events of her difficulties forming relationships, trusting others and her meeting and subsequent marriage to Carlo.

The story moves along smoothly and gathers pace well. For that reason, and the gradual build up of suspense, it's really quite difficult to put down. Brigid's character is brilliant...even if some of her decisions and actions made me want to scream in frustration "No! Don't do that!" into the pages of the book. But that was a good thing, I love when an author can incite that much emotion within me from the words on the page.

The only thing that I didn't enjoy whilst reading Rage Against The Dying was the use of pet names for almost all of the main characters. It was quite useful at the beginning for keeping track of who was who and as a quick insight into their main character traits but it's something that did annoy me a little by the end of the book. I'm picking for faults though and Masterman didn't make many.

The finale was rather brilliant and the story built up to it well, dripping information without giving too much away. It was put together cleverly and the identity of the Route 66 Killer blindsided me; it was completely unexpected.

I gave Becky Masterman's debut novel 5/5 stars; it was a superb read that I would highly recommend to lovers of the crime/thriller genre. Keep on the look out for Masterman's follow up novel that she's working on now that will also feature the brilliant Brigid Quinn.


Disclaimer: A proof copy of this book was kindly sent to me via Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions on the book are my own.