I have a habit of buying books a bit like I buy wine, in bulk. It’s a money saving thing really as if I had to go into Waterstones and only buy one book at a time I’d end up wasting hours trying to decide which one, and time is money after all! Dead Gone was therefore a book I added on impulse to a pile I bought before my operation. Despite not having heard of the author before, the front cover had a recommendation by Mark Billingham and if it’s good enough for Mark its good enough for me.
Set in Liverpool this is the debut novel by Luca Vesta. The story starts with the disappearance of Jemma as she walks home one night. Her boyfriend seems to be distraught, however things are not always what they seem. Her family and friends are at first sceptical as Jemma has gone missing before. Yet as time goes on they begin to realise things are not right and suspicion starts to point at the boyfriend. Alongside this story, bodies are being discovered with notes attached describing experiments carried out in the 1920s.
I enjoyed this book and thought the subject matter of the story was fascinating especially the references to varying psychological experiments. A few years ago I went to some ‘fun’ lectures about criminal psychology which discussed alot of the unethical work that was done during the 20s, and therefore the idea that someone could try and recreate the experiments nowadays was both interesting and scary. The writing itself felt quite punchy, short sentences added to the pace and kept me turning the pages. The descriptions of the killings are pretty atmospheric and you can feel the terror the victims go through.
One slight issue I had with this novel was that I wasn’t struck on the lead detective. As usual in detective fiction he had lots of issues having recently lost his parents and his wife. I felt that there was a bit too much concentrating on this rather than the actual crime. Personally I’m one of those people who is more interested in the story than the background so at times I found this a bit distracting, which wasn’t helped by my lack of patience as I just wanted to get on with the search for the murderer.
I found the setting of Liverpool to be very interesting as it’s a city I’ve visited a few times and enjoy. To anyone who knows the city the descriptions of places are obvious, but they manage to walk that fine line between describing too much detail and not setting the scene properly.
Overall I would say this was a very good debut novel that is well worth a read and I will definitely be looking out for future novels by Luca Vesta next time I’m bulk buying in Waterstones.
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