THE SURROGATE - Tania Carver

A debut novel, THE SURROGATE could be quite confrontational reading for many people.  The image of unborn babies torn from their dead mother's bodies - dead themselves, or more shockingly possibly still alive is going to shock.  Undoubtedly.

DI Phil Brennan, a loveless and abused child, risen to a policeman driven by a sense of responsibility, shocked himself at the nature of the crime that he is investigating is undoubtedly going to engender sympathy in readers.

The idea that there could be a woman behind these crimes, well again more shock.

And that's possibly what my major problem with this book is - everything seems to be designed to shock, the overt violence, a basic premise designed to discomfort readers, a policeman crafted to draw sympathy, a villain of such extreme villany that you have to be scared, hate, react somehow.

I will confess to being very very adverse to overt violence coupled with extreme planning and plotting, committed by a madder than mad on a day out from mad town lunatic though.  That sort of scenario doesn't work for me, and instantly switches on a groan reflex that I find nearly impossible to prevent.

Whilst this is a competently written book, I found the whole scenario way too over the top, the attempts to manipulate reactions too overt and the characterisations too predictable for my taste.