A darkly macabre thriller this, much in the style of Minette Walters. Roly Barnes is an oddball who raises finches in his aviary. Neigh bourhood kids tend to gather there, then one of them, a young boy, is found dead. Det. Supt. Parker is the chief investigating officer, and he calls in psychological profiler Murray Hanson to help out. Both men are pretty sure that the evil is emanating from Barnes's bird yard, but how to prove it? Then a deus ex machina in the form of the father of another boy appears to lend a hand. The writing has a nice, hairs-rising-on-the-back-of the-neck tone to it, and I wouldn't recommend staying up into the small hours to finish this one. Better to peruse it in daylight, with a hatchet close to hand.
Vincent Banville