Memories Of A Monster — S.D. Gripton

Thomas Ellis, under various names, has been murdering young girls for almost fifty years. He is proud of the fact that he has never been suspected, never been investigated and questioned only once following his very first killing. The victim was Mary and she disappeared from her village never to be seen again; she has remained a mystery for fifty-five years. Mary was an accident, she was not a planned murder, it just happened that way but Thomas enjoyed it so much he just kept on doing it, moving around, changing names, making friends with the victims' families so that he can stud at close quarters their suffering. Thomas Ellis is truly evil; he robs, he hurts people, he rapes and he places himself in the wills of the elderly though he is, himself, seventy-five years of age. Into this world steps a chaotic, and newly set-up, Cold Case Unit. It is headed by a disgraced Detective Sergeant, Rosie Butler, who was sent to the wilderness of North Wales following a head-butting incident against a senior officer. She is extremely unhappy at being moved from her friends and her apartment by the river in the capital, where theatres and sporting facilities are easily at hand, to North Wales which she has no idea how to find without a SatNav. Her two-man team is made up of Petra Lewis, a Detective Constable who is better known in the town in which the Unit is based as a drunkard and a fighter, she also inveigles herself into Rose Butler's life. The other member is Llewellyn Jones, a fifty-odd year Constable with a lifetime obsession into the death of Mary Flora Bell, the girl who disappeared from the village fifty-five years ago. She was followed by another two girls who also disappeared, Llew is obsessed with all of them. The Unit has no office in which to work, Rose Butler has no idea where she is in relation to the rest of the country, she is sad and is thinking of suicide. Can such an accomplished killer such Thomas Ellis ever be arrested and charged by such an incompetent, chaotic Unit? This is another exceptional novel from the twisted mind of S.D. Gripton