'Masochist Monthly', anyone? (The Ladykiller - Martina Cole)

Member Name: karenuk

Product:	The Ladykiller - Martina Cole
Date:	06/05/05 (266 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a page turner, a great read, strong characters

Disadvantages: difficult subject matter

Having finished reading two good biographies, I wanted to find a good fiction novel to get into. I picked up several and tried a few pages, but couldn’t really get into them. So I turned to a reliable source of literary entertainment – Martina Cole. The Ladykiller was the eighth book of hers that I have read and as I had enjoyed the others immensely, it seemed a safe bet that this one would also meet my high expectations.

But did it? Read on…

Not long after beginning the novel, I was warned it was Cole’s most graphic book and this needs to be stated clearly. Cole’s books are never for the faint-hearted, but The Ladykiller makes her other novels seem like Enid Blyton. While regular readers will expect swearing, violence and gangster culture, this one also explores the mind and actions of a depraved and sick man. You have been warned.

It is no surprise that there is a strong woman in this book, as Cole is known for this and it is one of the things that attracts me to her writing. The Ladykiller introduces us to a 40-year-old policewoman called DI Kate Burrows. She lives with her teenage daughter, Lizzy and her mother, Evelyn. Kate faces sexism at work, but prides herself on her competence and demands respect from her male colleagues.

She is a very hard worker, but at a price. She has no real social life, has had no relationships since her break up with Lizzy’s father and she feels guilty about not having spent much time at home being a mum. But Evelyn has been great and it seems that Lizzy has turned out a lovely teenager. But are things how they seem?

Kate’s work life soon becomes focused on one particularly nasty case - a serial rapist and murderer, who savagely attacks women, using and abusing them before, during and after death. He is soon dubbed The Grantley Ripper and a vast amount of time, energy and resources are directed towards this aim.

-----------------------------

Meanwhile, George and Elaine Markham live a simple, if not entirely happy, life together. They both go out to work and live in a nice house. George is irritatingly meek and mild, so quiet as to be almost unknown at work and completely subservient to his wife at home. He would never hurt a fly, would he?

He has few interests of his own, but does enjoy spending time in the shed with his gardening magazines. But behind the locked shed door are clues to his state of mind. Underneath the gardening magazines are other forms of reading material. Not just your average girlie mags either. Oh no, these are full of pictures of bondage and sadism.

But even so, he’s not hurting anyone, is he?

-------------------------------

Patrick Kelly is a local ‘face’. A rich businessman who has made his fortune from repossessions, brothels and several shady deals, everyone knows he lives off the profits of crime, but somehow he always manages to stay on the right side of the law, when anyone important is watching. But then, as he has several very influential figures on his side, is it surprising?

------------------------------

Patrick Kelly and DI Kate Burrows are destined to meet and to have their lives intertwined. But surely a relationship would be impossible? One a respected figure of authority on the right side of the law; the other firmly planted on the opposing side. But they do say opposites attract…

--------------------------------

It only took a few pages before I was really into the novel. It was compelling and soon became almost impossible to put down, until I was staying up much later than usual and reading over a hundred pages at one sitting. Martina Cole has a gift for making the reader feel drawn to the story and need to know what happens next.

I felt Kate was an excellent character – one to respect and admire, but not without her faults. You soon come to feel you know her and are on her side throughout. I am sure that any working mothers will also understand her guilty feelings at trying to combine her career with her duties as a parent. This side of her was very well described. Personally, I could empathise more with her relationship with her ex and how she tried to keep her daughter happy on that score.

I also liked her mother, Evelyn very much and felt she was also very realistic. Lizzy wasn’t quite so well drawn in my opinion. I felt she was harder to picture than some of the other characters and that she appeared more like a light pencil sketch than the full colour detailed painting of Kate.

Another of Cole’s traits in her writing is describing the criminal underworld. From tarts with hearts to gun-toting bully boys, each cameo role is stretched well, so we come to form opinions about them and therefore desire a specific outcome for each one.

Many of Martina’s male fictional characters are not likeable. They are often violent and aggressive or weak and laughable. But in The Ladykiller, we have Willy (Patrick’s friend and ‘number two’) and Kenneth Caitlin, who works on the murder case with Kate. Both provide some light relief from the general ever-present tension and are warm and engaging.

George Markham must be one of the most despicable and disgusting fictional characters ever. What he does in the story is sickening - but it is believable, because it follows a kind of frighteningly logical progression. At the same time as we see him sinking down to these depths in the present (The novel is set around 1990), we also see flashbacks to his childhood, where his domineering and sadistic mother introduced him to abuse at an early age. This gives credence to how he develops and provides a plausible reason – but not an excuse – for the crimes he commits as an adult.

I am trying to avoid spoilers and don’t want to give too much away, but I feel a warning needs to be put in at this point. This novel contains graphic scenes of battery, rape, buggery, necrophilia, bondage, sadism and child abuse. It is NOT a comfortable book to read.

My one real complaint about the novel isn’t the level of violence, which – although shocking – did not seem out of context (and if you feel upset by it, you can just remind yourself it’s FICTION!). No, the part of the book that annoyed me was Kate’s change in character through her romance. While completely believable throughout most of the 600+ pages, the last few chapters seem to destroy all her strong common sense and natural distrust and turn her into a quivering wreck, whenever her lover was around. So that was slightly annoying.

Their relationship also provides a few scenes in the novel which are rather arousing. This is a sex between two consenting adults and isn’t the slightest bit unconventional, but it does seem strange to find a rather pleasantly sexy scene in the midst of all the depravity in the rest of it, with enough perverted sex to make Casanova become celibate.

So overall, I would recommend this novel, as it was a really good read and an exciting thriller. But I can only recommend it with some reservations, as the subjects covered are often ones people may prefer NOT to read about. For Martina Cole fans, this is a must read, but for those who have yet to try one of her novels, I would suggest starting with a different book. (Goodnight Lady was the first one of hers that I read.)



THE LADYKILLER by Martina Cole
www.madaboutbooks.com
Cover price £6.99
Published by Headline

Summary: