Today I’m the last stop on the blog tour for The Seventh Victim by Michael Wood and I’m sharing my review. Huge thanks to Phoebe Swinburn of Midas PR for the invitation and audio copy.
About the book
By Michael Wood
Narrated by: Joanne Froggatt and Matthew Horne
Release date: 5th March 2020
Imagine receiving a letter from your son’s murderer. Imagine starting to trust him.
What if the only person who can help you find your son, is the man in prison for killing him?
A child taken. A mother on the hunt for the truth.
Twenty-five years after her son Zachery disappeared without trace, Diane Marshall receives a letter that overturns her world once again. The man convicted of killing 13 boys, Zachery among them, finally confesses to it all – except the murder of her son.
Armed with this new information and determined to discover the location of his body, Diane and the former DI in charge of the case start investigating. Somewhere out there, her son’s killer is waiting as the reckoning draws nearer. Sooner or later, the terrible truth – buried and undisturbed for a quarter of a century – will out.
My thoughts
The Seventh Victim is a chilling and utterly gripping story that is an uncomfortable listen at times but it’s also one that I found I couldn’t stop listening to.
Diane’s son Zachary is one of the victims of serial killer Jonathon Egan Walsh, convicted of killing 13 boys. All the boys were found and the parents able to lay the to rest apart from Zachary. Over the 25 years since Zachary vanished Jonathon has been tight lipped about his murder, never giving any clues to what happened or where he could possibly be.
Now as a parent myself I couldn’t ever imagine the feeling of not knowing, not being able to have closure and it’s been a real struggle for Diane. She had to give up her job, her marriage ended and her relationship with her youngest son has really suffered. Even being part of the support group that was set up by the parents of Jonathon’s victims, Diane doesn’t feel like she truly belongs, they’ve all been able to put their children to rest, Diane hasn’t.
After Jonathon dies, Diane believes that’s the end, she’ll never know where her son is but Jonathon left a letter claiming he didn’t kill Zachary so Diane starts to investigate and there’s a little spark of hope she’ll finally find her son.
I’m not kidding when I say that this story had me gripped, I felt every single emotion along with Diane and could totally sympathise with her. I had to pinch myself sometimes and remind myself that what I was listening to wasn’t real and it was terrifying at times. It made me want to just grab my kids and give them a huge big cuddle and lock them inside and never let them out of my sight again.
The Seventh Victim is a story that I feel uncomfortable saying I enjoyed because the subject matter isn’t enjoyable but the writing is fantastic and gripping. The narrators Joanne Froggatt and Matthew Horne really bring the story to life in an eerily chilling way.
The Seventh Victim really took me by surprise, I genuinely thought I knew what would happen but it had twists and turns that kept me on my toes. It’s one of those stories that you NEED to keep listening, you NEED to know what happens next and you don’t NEED sleep until you’ve devoured every second. 3am I finished listening and it’s a story that will be imprinted in my brain for a long time.
I’ll definitely be recommending The Seventh Victim and I’ll be checking out Michael Woods other books now.
Catch up with the tour
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