If you can't be hurt, you can't be loved (Without Consent - Kathryn Fox)

Member Name: aylawarner

Product:	Without Consent - Kathryn Fox
Date:	30/09/09 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An easy reading crime novel

Disadvantages: Not enough excitement or panic for a crime book

Forensic physician, Dr Anya Crichton, comes across several rape victims in her job who all have similarities. Each one has a blade shaped bruise on their chest, a beaten left check and each one was told by their rapist 'If you can't be hurt, you can't be loved'. But when two of the victims are found stabbed to death, Anya and the police find themselves hunting a serial rapist who has now turned into a killer.

The crimes seem to correspond with Geoffrey Willard's release from twenty years in prison for the rape and murder of a teenage girl. The details of the crimes are too similar and Willard falls directly under police scrutiny. But the forensic evidence just doesn't seem to add up, so Anya has a tough job on her hands to find out and prove who really committed the murders.

~ My opinion ~
Without Consent follows a very similar storyline to many other crime books and is especially similar to Patricia Cornwall and Karin Slaughter novels which follow a female main character who works closely with the police but is actually in the medical/forensic field. Anya Crichton takes on the role of lead character in this book which ultimately turns her into the heroine of the story. I didn't particularly feel very close to her character though to be honest, despite her background and emotions being described, and despite her being the lead role who readers are probably supposed to feel close to. I think that Fox could have gone into more detail about the characters as each one seemed to be quite distant and we only found out a small bit about Anya but none of the others.

This book is actually the second in a series, the first being Malicious Intent, and, although you don't need to have read the first to understand what is going on, there were a couple of times when previous occurrences were mentioned which made me think that there had been a previous book. Maybe Fox delved deeper into the characters in her debut novel and so she only thought she needed to touch on them briefly in the second but this did have the effect of leaving me with no strong feelings for anyone in the book.

The twist at the end of the book was totally unexpected and was even more surprising because I thought that I knew where the story was heading only for it to take me in a completely different direction. This ending made the book much more interesting as the rest of the book I found to be slightly lacking in character. There was no real excitement or panic until the end and it just seemed to plod along with slight developments taking place until the case was solved.

Although the story was good and I found the book enjoyable to read, it was too lacking in excitement and that fear and panic that I've felt from reading other crime novels. It's far from the best crime book I've read and is pretty average to be honest, but it's a decent enough and made an enjoyable read.

Summary: An enjoyable but average read