I love Margaret Murphys books, she is another author who never disappoints me.
Detective Cassie Rowan is assigned to an unusual case, an effigy has been found and a week later a body is discovered dressed exactly the same as the effigy. As the case progresses more effigy’s and murders are linked and it seems they have all been involved with drugs in some way.
This is book 2 in a series and I think it would have been helpful to have read the first book as what happened in book 1 has shaped book 2 and it is referenced a lot.

#TheScarecrowKiller. #NetGalley

First, thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This one took me longer than usual to get through, but it wasn't because of the book, I just had some personal things going on that kept me from reading. This was mostly good. The book is written well, the main characters are well realized (and will feel familiar if you've read or watched modern police procedurals). I had some gripes with some side characters and the resolution but this was solid regardless. An important note: I have not read the first book but I didn't feel lost at all. There's references to the first book, but nothing that makes you feel left out so you can definitely read as a standalone.

Quick hits:
+ Cassie is an intriguing character. She's at a point of her career where she's built the skills to be a good detective, but she's still learning some of the finer details which will make her come into her own. She never feels petulant or annoying (even with her short temper), she feels like a real modern member of the police.
+ The premise of the book is really interesting and I had fun seeing the investigation progress.
+ Most of the side characters were good. They each had a part to play in the story and even put Cassie in a bit of a mentor role. Warman and Jackie are the highlights.
- Jim North was beyond annoying, and it felt there were moments he was shoehorned in just to be annoying. I get why he is the way he is, but by the 75% mark I was already beyond annoyed.
- The resolution just kind of happens out of nowhere. It isn't that you couldn't see how it happened, but it just pops up in a chapter and you get the explanation later. It felt forced and not like a natural progression of the story.
- The story felt a bit long. The number of pages were fine, but once I was at around ~80%, I was expecting to hit the point of the fast paced wrap up of the story that is common in most mysteries, but I did not. It still felt like the story was in the middle and then we were just at the end and not that the evidence drove the conclusion.

As you can see, I'm a bit mixed. This is a solid mystery read, but I don't think it'll blow your socks off. There's enough good here to recommend to mystery fans, and of course readers of the series. But for me this sits at about 3/5.

2.5 stars

I haven’t read this author before so I went into this without reading the first instalment of the detective character. That didn’t effect my ability to enjoy or understand the plot here, although there were some references made to the plot of the previous book.

I was wondering if the author did spend more time building up the characters in the first book, because they all felt very superficial in this book. I didn’t feel anything for Cassie or the people she cared about. I felt like I was never properly introduced to them at all.

I think technically-speaking the author is a very good writer. Her descriptions of landscapes and atmospheres are well worded and actually a bit poetic. She doesn’t repeat any tired cliches that you might find in a lot of crime fiction.

The plot has a lot of promise but sort of fizzles out in the last 100 pages. The pace is actually incredibly slow until those last pages, where it then speeds up to the point that it feels as though a huge part of the story has been skipped and a haphazard solution has been thrown out as an afterthought.

I’m left a bit confused. This book dragged for so long and yet I feel like I didn’t get the corresponding amount of information for all those pages read. It’s strange to say the writing itself is of a high quality but the characterisations and plot development weren’t very good. I think it had a lot of potential but in that last stretch it all unraveled.

If the reader likes a good murder thriller, this is the book for them. Detective Cassie Rowan and her team investigate the death of a body hanging from a tree, but on closer investigation it is an effigy and a week later the dead body of Damian Novak is discovered having been run over by a vehicle whose driver did not stop. The novel keeps the reader guessing until the final pages.

This was a decent detective mystery. It took me a while to really get into it though and I didn't like a lot of the characters.

The book opens with Cassie Rowan, a detective who stumbles across a scary image of a scarecrow hanging above as she is on her way home after a grueling night of work. Cassie first perceives this to be a body and goes to investigate. A week later this scarecrow will be tied to many more murders that follow., with some people believing the Scarecrow is either a voodoo doll or a doppelganger of a person who will soon die.

In the beginning I really liked this book. Seven chapters in and it had me; however, it was hard to keep me! It was not a bad read, but it was not what I was expecting. The characters were not very interesting and had no major development. The lead character was not really someone that you championed. She was the typical British woman detective type that you see in shows such as The Fall, you know the " I am a bad, tough detective type, and I can do it better than a man." Like the traditional "bad tough detective type, " her character didn't feel the rules applied to her and didn't care who she walked on to get what she wanted, even if it is that meant sacrificing the victim.

I don't think I particularly cared to follow her plight nor was I very engaged in her storyline. For me the best part was the dynamic between her and her younger brother who had suffer a traumatic injury to his arm while saving his sister. I really loved seeing the development of their relationship and the story line as well as the one with Psychologist. I also like the relationship between Jim and Cassie, and really liked reading Jim parts,

However, for me this book did not match its cover. I expected to see a bit more mystic surrounding the scarecrow and its myths. This book was nothing at all what I expected, and at times it was a bit lackluster. Another thing I did not care for is the constant switch between first and last names of the characters. It could be Rowan and then Cassie in the next sentence. This was constantly happening with many characters, which made it a bit confusing!

I do appreciate the Joffe team for allowing me to read this book and all the work they have done and continue to do to help get talented first-time authors' work published. Who knows we may see a Fredrik Backman in the near future. I would have to agree with two earlier reviewers who stated that Cassie's character is not engaging enough to make you want to follow her into other sequels. This is just my opinion, for some readers this may be exactly their speed!

Finished ✔️ The Scarecrow Killer by Margaret Murphy!

4 ⭐️’s
Publish Day: February 23rd, 2023
On KU
An absolutely gripping crime thriller
Pull of twists that most I didn’t see.
Set in October.
Detective Rowan is in for a stressful yet interesting case
This interesting case has what I’d call stranger than normal circumstances 🤯
Detective Rowan is doing her best before the brutal killer, scary killer strikes again.
Lots of twisty turns I didn’t see coming
Very exciting book overall
It’s a book that can get you very hooked from the beginning 👀
An intense read
I personally thought it was lacking a little something which is why I gave it 4 ⭐️’s
Perfect size book, although it could have been a couple pages longer to put in what I felt was lacking.
I’d recommend the book and series

#DeesReading #DeesRecs #DeesBookRecommendations #BookNerds #BookNerdProblems #BookNerdsUnited #BookProblems #BookProblems101 #Bookworms #BookwormProblems #BooksOfFacebook #DeeTheBookReviewer #BookReviewer #NewToMeAuthor #MargaretMurphy #ReadOfTheDay #BookOfTheDay #MysteriesAndThrillers #PsychologicalThrillers #NetGalley #TheScarecrowKiller #CrimeThriller

Cassie Rowan’s see something in the trees on her drive one night, it’s a scarecrow in the trees. A week later there is a hit and run on the same stretch of road and something just does not add up. Cassie is convinced that the scarecrow and the hit and run are connected.
This was a slow burn detective novel with a lot of Britsh slang, but don’t worry there is a handy glossary in the back.
This book had a great mix of the Cassie’s life as well as the case and didn’t not get too technical or scientific.

⭐️Rating: 3/5
✍🏼Author: Margaret Murpy
📖Genre: Mystery/ Thriller

This is book 2 in the series and so far, it's shaping up well. Cassie is a determined woman, if a bit too feisty for her own good.

Someone is hanging effigies of people a week before their deaths and Cassie is determined to catch the killer. I found this a very interesting and engaging read, and despite Cassie infuriates me, I find myself still rooting for her especially with her ongoing homelife troubles with her brother.

I must admit I thought I had things figured out but I was wrong. There were several twists in here that threw me which is always a plus. There were lots of twists and turns and it was definitely a page turner.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are that of my own.

Let me start by saying that I didn't realize this was a follow-up to another book until I dug into the author a little bit. That being said, it was awesome as a stand-alone. I didn't feel lost at all and truth be told, I now plan on reading the first book too.
This was a different style of book then I usually read. Usually I read books with fast-paced, jaw-dropping twists. This was different but in a good way; it wasn't a slow burn but didn't move at neck breaking speed either. Cassie Rowan, the main character, is spunky and likeable. She is developed in a fantastic way that made me like her from the get-go. This book had me guessing at who was behind the killings and had a creepy vibe to it (lots of fog, great description of the effigies, town legends and folklore, etc.) There were a few characters that I had to think twice about as to whether or not I could trust them (each time I was wrong, by the way haha!).
I felt like story moved along at a nice pace and came together perfectly at the end. The characters were developed in the exact way I like - descriptive but not dragging on with information that didn't matter.
I would recommend this book for people who love crime thrillers.

DI Cassie Rowan is back on a case involving masked dummies, a murder a week later and the usual drug related suspects of the local council estate somewhere in Liverpool. Well characterised people although Cassie seems always to be at odds with the team and trying to go it alone. They don't learn do they? Context is well described and story sufficiently complex to keep the attention. Cassie's home life is turbulent, trying to bring up her teenage brother who has difficulties relating back to a past tragedy, as does she to a degree. That does detract to a degree from the investigation, but not too much thankfully. Although the second in a series it is fine as a standalone and is better than the first too. A nicely developing series. 3.5* rounded up to 4.. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

Detective Cassie Rowan is driving home on the motorway late at night when something catches her eye at the side of the road. Getting out of her car to investigate, she finds a hanging body, but thankfully it is just an effigy, not a real person. A week later, there is an accident on the same stretch of road resulting in the death of seventeen-year-old Damian Novak. Cassie believes that the two incidents have to be connected and soon discovers that Damian is not the first teenager in that area to die in suspicious circumstances, each death being preceded by a mysterious effigy…

I really enjoyed the first book in this series, Before He Kills Again, so I was pleased to see that Margaret Murphy had written a follow-up. The Scarecrow Killer can definitely be read as a standalone, however, so don’t worry if you haven’t read the first.

Cassie is a great character, determined to find the guilty party no matter what it takes. Her single-mindedness does not always endear her to her superiors but it is this doggedness that makes her such a good detective. Her home life is not what you would call conventional, but this is part of what makes her such a likeable character, as she deals with her younger sibling who she has had responsibility for since the death of their parents.

The plot is a strong one with a plethora of great characters, each one playing their part in this mysterious and slightly macabre story. Although Cassie works in Liverpool, I really liked how much of the action takes place in a nearby village which appears to be stuck firmly in the past, seeming almost otherworldly. I found that I could easily visualise the village although the though of a boggart in the fog did unnerve me slightly!

I hope that this isn’t the last we see of Cassie Rowan.

Thank you to #Netgalley for my copy of #TheScarecrowKiller by #MargaretMurphy
I found this book hard to get into but once I did I enjoyed it. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that all Cassie Romans superiors were incompetent or lazy and she was the only decent detective there. Most policing like most jobs is teamwork.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

‘The Scarecrow Killer’ is the second book in the DC Cassie Rowan series, however it does read well as a standalone. I was drawn to this book as the plot intrigued me – the premise of effigies is both original and slightly terrifying at the same time, and the first few chapters had me gripped - the unusual story line and interesting array of characters really grabbed me, however, the further I got into the tale, I felt a few lulls in both pace and execution.

A decent portion of the story is dedicated to Cassie’s homelife and in particular her struggles in bringing up her teenage brother following the death of their parents a few years earlier. Whilst I can see what the author is trying to achieve in making the characters appear more relatable, I personally am more interested in the investigation, so I was a bit disappointed with the balance. I also have to admit that I struggled with the frequent switching between first and last names of the characters – there are a lot of characters anyway, so this added an unnecessary level of confusion.

Overall, I enjoyed The Scarecrow Killer, with its fascinating plot, interesting array of characters and a couple of good twists.

Telly good book not my normal type of read but I really enjoyed this book . It is well worth a read .

I’d like to thank Joffe Books and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Scarecrow Killer’ by Margaret Murphy in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Driving homed on the M62 motorway after a night on duty, DC Cassie Rowan sees what she believes to be a person in bright clothing running by the side of the road but turns out to be a scarecrow hanging from a branch wearing a gruesome mask. A week later there’s a fatal accident on the motorway in the same area and dressed in the same clothing.

‘The Scarecrow Killer’ is the second book involving DC Cassie Rowan and although the first few chapters had me gripped with the nicely thought-out plot and interesting characters, the further I got into the story the more it slowed down until I was hoping it would get more exciting. There’s nothing wrong with the book as it’s a good solid read, and I was delighted that at the end Cassie caught the villain she’d been searching for, but I felt it could have been so much better.

DC Cassie Rowan #2

just before dawn on a clear October morning, Detective Cassie Rowan is driving home, exhausted, after a grueling night on duty. Her headlights catch a sudden flash of movement by the side of the road, a streak of bright metallic blue. Cassie pills over to take a look. for a moment she thinks she's imagined it: a body swaying among the trees - hanging from a branch. Cassie scrambles up the slope, already dialing the emergency services. And stops dead....

Although this is the second book in this series, it does read well as a standalone. Detective Cassie Rowan is investigating a murder and she finds some similarities to some historical cases. Cassie is quite a feisty character who has quite a demanding home life and a challenging job. The pace is verging on the slow side. The characters are well developed and there are lots of twists to keep us on our toes. I did guess who the killer was but that doesn't take anything away from my enjoyment of a book.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #JoffeBooks and the author #MargaretMurphy for my ARC of #TheScarecrowKiller in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. It is the first time I have read a book by this author......and it definatly will not be the last. I loved the characters especially the main characters. Also liked the back story which helps to develope the characters. The story is abit gruesome but flows well. I cant wait to read another book by this author.

I felt the book wasn’t as exciting as I hoped and I struggled a bit with it. Doubt I will read anymore about Cassie.

Another gripping read from this very talented author. Original plot and great characters. Chilling, brutal murders and so intense. Even though this book is part of a series it can be read as a stand alone. This book had everything I expect from a really good crime thriller. Loved it!!!!!
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for giving an honest review.