The Butcher & the Wren
By Alaina Urquhart
Publisher: Michael Joseph – Penguin Random House RRP $37
Just in time for Halloween, your latest thrilling read has arrived.
They say you should start out by writing what you know. If so, it makes, around a serial killer with medical training nicknamed the Bayou Butcher going toe-to-toe with a forensic medical examiner, Wren Muller. The narrative comes in alternating chapters that switch between the perspectives of the titular characters. While one is plainly a righteous warrior fighting for truth and justice and the other is evil incarnate fixated on achieving satisfaction through sadism, Urquhart, having steeped herself in these two worlds, gives us a front-row seat to the lives, minds, motivations, obsessions, and anxieties of both on equal footing.
