This book is the first in a series centred around Jennifer Dorey, a reporter returned home after a troubled stint in London. Her hope is to find some peace at home but discovers a pattern of deaths of teenage girls across five decades while researching an article for the local paper, she reports her findings to the police and helps them in their investigation to bring down a serial killer that nobody realised walked among them for so long.

This story weaves in local folklore and landmarks, which adds a layer of sinister authenticity to the killings. The landscape itself is a character in this book and you can almost hear the wind and sea while you read it.

The main character is constantly reminding us that everyone knows everyone else’s business when they live in a small community like Guernsey, but there’s not really anything to back this up as she doesn’t interact with very many people at all and those that she does don’t know who she is, and nobody has noticed the strange proportion of teenage deaths on the island. As this is central to the plot, I did find it frustrating.

The chapters flipped back and forth between the perspectives of Jennifer, DI Gibson and the memories of the murderer which gradually catch up with the current day. This isn’t a format that I’m fond of as I like to fully relate to one character and follow their journey through to the end.

DI Gibson was my favourite character of the bunch, a man who is doing everything he can to find a reason to keep on living after the death of his teenage daughter. Everything he does is tempered by his loss and he’s a better detective in some ways because of it.

In the end, I think The Devil’s Claw was the wrong choice for me – I’m a fan of crime thrillers in general but this book felt like a cosy mystery plot-line in a dark thriller writing style, complete with very short sentences, that I couldn’t come to grips with.

About the Author

Lara was born and raised on the beautiful Channel Island of Guernsey. She moved to the UK to study International Relations and French at the University of Sussex, after which she endured a brief career in finance before giving it up to be a stay at home mum to her three children.

A short course in Creative Writing at Richmond Adult Community College led to Lara studying for a Masters in Creative Writing at St Mary’s University, London. She graduated in 2016 with a distinction.

Having moved from Guernsey to Brighton to London to Paris to Singapore and back to London over the last fifteen years, she has now settled in Westchester, New York, with her family. The Devil’s Claw is her first novel and combines her love of Guernsey, myths and folklore with her obsession with crime fiction and serial killers…