This was another sterling piece of crime fiction by Victoria Selman.. .full of dark and gruesome serial killer fabulousness, and the police profiler trying to unravel the answer in a race against time!

This is the first time I have read anything from this author and I quite enjoyed it. I didn’t know this was the third book in a series but I had no trouble keeping up with the characters.
In some of the reviews Silence of the Lambs is being compared to this book. I honestly didn’t think so other than the main character is a profiler who teaches at Quantico.
Unfortunately I figured out quite early on who one of the “bad guys” were which takes a bit away from the enjoyment of the story. All in all I enjoyed the book and happily recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

This will go live on 4 December on the link below, and on Goodreads and Amazon:

Hi and welcome to my review of Snakes and Ladders! This is the third novel in the Ziba MacKenzie series, but I assure you it can be read as a standalone and I know that because I did. For reasons I can’t even begin to understand, I completely missed the first two books and to add insult to injury, I hadn’t even heard of Victoria Selman (gasp!). Then Snakes and Ladders started popping up all over my Twitter timeline and I stumbled across it on NetGalley. When I spotted that tagline (Psycho meets The Silence of the Lambs) I didn’t bother looking up the book nor the author, I just requested it and it was only when I was approved and went to add it on Goodreads that I noticed it was part of a series. Regulars here will know I like to read books in the right order but I didn’t think I’d have the time to squeeze in two more books before this one so I decided to give it a whirl and see what happened (living on the edge 🙃). I’m happy to report I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, I connected with Ziba immediately, despite having missed her first outings, and there’s enough background information to just step into the series without a hitch.

Ziba MacKenzie is a freelance profiler. At the beginning of the book, she’s giving a lecture in Quantico to FBI agents in training when she’s called away to London: Scotland Yard needs her help with the Pink Rose Killer, a serial killer whose MO is to remove a body part from his victim and leave a pink rose at the scene. Funnily enough, the PRK is not the main serial killer in Snakes and Ladders: the star serial killer is Vernon – The Butcher – Sange, who was apprehended a while ago thanks to Ziba, and who has contacted the police saying he has intel on the PRK but he’ll only tell Ziba.

Now, Ziba is a great protagonist. She’s smart, she’s both strong and vulnerable, she has the kind of humour that I love, rather dark and very sarcastic, and she’s always at odds with the DCI with whom she has to work the case and I loved her little retorts, even if she keeps them to herself. But my favourite character, without a doubt, was Dr Sange, a cunning man, far more charming than Hannibal Lecter ever was, messing with Ziba’s head the way Lecter did with Clarice, and then some. Move over Hannibal Lecter, move over Anson Bishop, there’s a new serial killer in town! (For the record: I’m not a serial killer groupie, I only like the fictional kind!)

By now I think I must have read an entire library of crime and psychological thrillers and quite a large subsection of serial killer thrillers at that, so I think it’s fair to say I’ve become a little jaded and the things that used to work for me don’t always cut it anymore. Snakes and Ladders made me a very happy reader because it felt unique by focusing on the behavioural science behind the attempts to apprehend a serial killer, to pre-empt him, to predict his next move, while also zooming in on the behavioural analysis of convicted killers, and why that is important. I’ve read other books featuring a profiler, but none that go this far into the actual science. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a text book in any way, but I felt like I was learning a lot while simultaneously being entertained. I find the whole profiling thing absolutely fascinating so I paid extra attention (part of me wonders whether I should have read Psychology in uni instead of Translation Studies) but even if you don’t care about behavioural analysis that much, I’m sure you can enjoy this novel too.

This is an intriguing, suspenseful read, and although I figured out who the PRK was from the start and it turned out I was right not to trust one of the other characters either, it doesn’t even matter, not even a little bit, because to me Snakes and Ladders is not a whodunnit, it’s not about revealing the who, it’s about revealing the why, it’s less about the destination and more about the journey to find out the truth and you’d better believe it’s left me hungry ravenous for more! If you’re not into open endings, don’t worry, the PRK case is neatly wrapped up, but let’s just say another character has kicked the door to the next Ziba instalment wide open, and ending the way it does, I literally CANNOT WAIT for the next Ziba MacKenzie!

Recommended, and if Mindhunter is your favourite Netflix show then this is a must read!

Snakes and Ladders is out in eBook format now, and in paperback on 17 December, don’t miss it! (Pre-)order it on Amazon here.

This is the third book in the Ziba MacKenzie series. Ziba is a profiler with a special forces background, she carries a lot of sadness with her as her husband Duncan was killed a few years before the events in this story. This novel has an intriguing start. Ziba is lecturing at the FBI in Quantico whilst in London a murderer labelled the Pink Rose Killer (PRK) is stalking London for victims. Pulling the strings like a master puppeteer is Dr Vernon Sange, a cold blooded serial killer of at least 12 people and currently serving life imprisonment in HMP Wakefield, the largest high security prison in the UK. He is awaiting extradition to the USA for execution for crimes committed there. There is a connection between Sange and the PRK as Sange seems to know far more than he should which he dangles in riddles. Ziba is bright back from Quantico to help Scotland Yard detectives profile the PRK. This is a very twisty, dark story with gruesome murders which has the feel of Criminal Minds with Ziba being JJ or Emily Prentiss and I did feel as if I had stepped into an episode! The story is told by Ziba and the killer which works well.

The characters in the book are good. I like Ziba although in this one although she drops the ball rather too often as she wrestles with her feelings for journalist Jack Wolfe. He is a really good character too and you so root for these two to make a go of things so Ziba can move on from Duncan. You learn more about Ziba and her background in this one which I enjoyed. I like the interactions and game playing between Ziba and Sange who is a former university don and so is highly intelligent and the master of manipulation. They lock horns and try to outplay each other but it has to be said that Ziba is frequently on the back foot. Sange is the snake in this story and Ziba is climbing the ladders. DI Nigel Fingerling is just as odious as he was in previous books although some of his instincts are correct.

Part of the story has ancient Roman connections and has links to Ancient Greek literature which I think is a really good element and quite original and this is what links Sange to the PLK. My only negatives are that some scenes feel a bit manufactured and a tad unrealistic and there are some ‘Silence of the Lambs’ moments especially at the end.

Overall, a good, dark psychological thriller with a dash of humour and an abundance of twists and turns that fans of the genre appreciate.

Dr. Vernon Sange is an incarcerated serial killer and he appears to have intimate knowledge of another serial killer slashing his way though London. Sange won’t spill his guts to anyone but profiler Ziba Mackenzie, the same women who was responsible for having him locked up. Make no mistake, Sange isn’t helping the police through the goodness of his heart, he wants something in return. Silence of the Lambs. With more than a little resemblance to Silence of the Lambs and some Ted Bundy thrown in, this book highlights what profilers have often known – serial killers make some of the best profilers themselves

So far, I've been very impressed with Ziba MacKenzie's stories and number 3 does not disappoint. Ziba faces a real baddie in the tradition of the best charming but super-scary serial killers. Ziba put Vernon Sange behind bars, but she now needs him to catch a new killer whose only calling card is a rose petal. The murders are creepy and, as much as Ziba tries, the police are nowhere near catching the killer. There's also personal drama as her relationship with her late husband's best friend gets more complicated and he starts becoming a liability. The ways that Sange manipulates and gets involved in Ziba's life are pretty creative. I loved all the twists and turns except for the final one. No spoilers but I had discarded that particular suspicion because it was so, so obvious that it could not be real, could it? If an accountant in Idaho figured it out immediately, one of the best profilers in the Yard's history would clearly have seen it coming, right? I didn't find this part believable. Anyway, the rest of the novel was so good, that I will try to forget such an oversight and chalk it up to Ziba's being distracted.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, Amazon Publishing UK!

A good thriller with strong characters that hooks from the start, just as good as the first two in the series and although it can be read before you read the first two i would reccomend they are read in order, cannit wait for number 4 to appear on Netgalley

What started seemingly to be a rehash along the lines of Silence of the Lambs changed into a reader grabbing story line keeping one intrigued to the very end.. an unmissable read!