BOOK REVIEW: Eeny Meeny (DI Helen Grace, #1) by M.J. Arlidge

Well I devoured this award-winning, best-selling thriller quite quickly! It’s a British police procedural with a female protagonist with multiple relatively well-drawn (if not very likeable) supporting characters. DI Helen Grace is the main character who is trying to solve a series of bizarre murders where the killer abducts two people and then places them in an impossible situation with a loaded gun where either they have to kill the other abductee or they both will die of dehydration or starvation. Early on it becomes clear there’s a female serial killer on the loose. Even if one of the victims “survives” their lives are forever ruined since they have revealed themselves to be capable of killing (albeit in a kill or be killed situation).

It must be acknowledged that Eeny Meeny  has an amazingly brilliant premise so I can see why the book was a hit. However DI Grace is a huge mess. She’s a single woman, completely obsessed with her job. The structure of the book is that the story is told in very small, bite-sized chapters, rarely lasting longer than a handful of pages. We slowly find out more about Helen's demons, even as chapters about Helen are interleaved with what appears to be  flashbacks of some horrific child abuse and some current masochistic behavior, both of which we (as the reader) hope is not describing Helen.

Although I gave Eeny Meeny 4 stars I’m not a huge fan of the book. The serial killer has almost magical powers as she stalks her victims, finding abandoned inescapable locales she can hold the abductees (and this last bit was the most problematically unrealistic part) impeccable timing so that within minutes after one of the victims cracks and kills the other, she’s able to let the “winner” go.

Another feature of the book which is both attractive and repulsive is the writing style. The author MJ Arlidge was a successful TV writer and it shows. Each chapter is basically a vignette, usually no longer than 3-4 pages, often ending with a suspenseful cliffhanger. This makes Eeny Meeny very exciting to read and hard to put down, but in my opinion it also “cheapens” the reading experience. It feels like the book is a series of very tantalizing but nutrition-free addictive snacks. By the end, you realize you ate the entire bag of chips in a surprisingly short period of time and while you enjoyed doing it until the very end, the realization of the effects the hollow calories you just consumed will have on your figure is distressing.

That being said, Helen is a very interesting (if severely flawed) main character, the team of detectives around her is also interesting and the premise and plotting  in this first entry were top notch. I’ll almost certainly read a few more Helen Grace thrillers, but I don't think I'l respect myself in the morning afterwards! 

Title: Eeny Meeny.
Author: M.J. Arlidge.
Paperback: 400 pages.
Publisher: Minotaur Books.
Date Published: May 20, 2014.
Date Read: May 17, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★ (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.