The Cornish village of St Petroc is the sort of place where people come to hide. Tom Killgannon is one such person. An ex-undercover cop, Tom is in the Witness Protection Programme, and St Petroc offers him a chance to live a safe and quiet life. Until he meets Lila.

Lila is a 17-year-old runaway. When she breaks into Tom's house she takes more than just his money. His wallet holds everything about his new identity. He also knows that Lila is in danger from the travellers' commune she's been living at. But to find her he risks not only giving away his location to the gangs he's in hiding from but also becoming a target for whoever is hunting Lila.

Well I was quite chuffed to come across this book as from the reviews & blurb it seemed to tick a lot of boxes for me. The basis of this book was, I felt, a very promising one & the prospect of it involving superstition & folklore was an appealing one to me. Combining this with crime/thriller action & I'd've thought it would be a sure fire winner. Sadly for me it failed to meet expectations.

Firstly, I was niggled about something in the story very early on. It seemed ridiculous to me that an ex- undercover cop enrolled in the witness protection programme would keep ALL his id - & that's his WHOLE Tom Killgannon identity - in his coat pocket!! All it did was to serve as a way to engineer a connection between Tom & Lila - surely it could have been done in a more plausible way?Rightly or wrongly, this annoyance festered at me throughout the book & which maybe affected its credibility in my eyes.

Secondly, I didn't like the characters. Now I don't find liking the characters to be essential to enjoying a book but I do have to believe in them while I'm reading it at least & I found this bunch hackneyed. Tom had potential but came over rather non-descript. Lila, Noah & co however, reminded me of thugs in a Martina Cole novel & from me that isn't a compliment, unlikeable characters that even their mothers would struggle to care about - frankly, I just didn't enjoy reading about them.

As to "the Old Religion" & the mysterious Morrigan (the revealing of whom was the only surprise in the book but by that point I was past caring), well things merely scratched the surface. I wanted more than the odd crow warning & a predictable sacrifice, too trite when it should've/could've been sinister.

By the time I had about 100 pages to go I just wanted to get it finished & the final chapters, including the little we learn of Morrigan, could have been out of any schlock horror novel. So overall I wasn't impressed - though you might have gathered that! ;o)

Added to the LFL at Westdale Drive Pudsey.




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