The Twenty

I absolutely loved Holland's The Echo Man last year, so I was impatiently eagerly anticipating her next book. Dark, violent, and not for the squeamish, this second installment of the Major Crimes series features a cameo by DCI Cara Elliott from the first book but can easily be read as a standalone.

Once again, Holland sets a dark and chilling atmosphere within her latest thriller. There's a big cast of characters, good tension and solid twists as DCI Adam Bishop tries to hunt down a serial killer whose only clue is a Roman numeral left with each body.

There are some interesting connections between the characters and DCI Bishop is a glorious mess of a man and Romilly's past was a great addition to this cat and mouse thriller. But I felt like sometimes these personal tangents disrupted the tension in the hunt for the serial killer. Holland kept me wavering on who was the culprit and although I didn't guess their identity, it felt like the reveal was out of left field and wasn't quite as satisfying as I had expected. 

Holland sets a delightfully disturbing tone and gives her readers many possible culprits to keep them guessing and has earned her spot as one of my auto-read authors when I want a dark and gory thriller. The Twenty and The Echo Man are great additions to the serial killer thriller subgenre and they perfect picks for fans of Jeffrey Deaver and Chris Carter. 

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Crooked Lane Books for my complimentary digital copy of this book which was provided in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 4 stars

Author: Sam Holland

Genre: Suspense

Type and Source: eBook from publisher via NetGalley

Series: #2 in the Major Crimes series

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

First Published: May 11, 2023

Book Description from GoodReads: A tense novel from a fast-rising star, Sam Holland, The Twenty fuses a chilling race-against-time with blood-curdling crime fiction. For fans of Harlan Coben and Thomas Harris, Sam Holland offers readers a page-turning serial killer thriller with “echoes of Lisa Gardner” (AJ Finn, #1 NYT bestselling author, on The Echo Man).

When DCI Adam Bishop arrives at the crime scene in the dead of night, the sight of the body is bad enough—but what Adam notices next chills him to his core. More bodies surface. And the spray-painted numbers daubed above the corpses reveal the horrific truth: the killer is counting down. But to what end?

Adam has no idea—until Dr. Romilly Cole knocks on his door with damning evidence pointing to a series of murders fifteen years earlier—a case she knows intimately from her past. Now, it’s personal—and the next knock on his door could be fatal.

Sam Holland’s gripping debut novel, The Echo Man, riveted readers and critics alike with its raw and brutal depiction of the unthinkable depredations of a serial killer. With The Twenty, Holland kicks her depraved milieu into even higher gear with a page-turning, up-all-night read that left us breathless.