Thanks NetGalley for the listen. Narrator was great. The book was good, too slow a pace for me. Characters where there but felt most of it was details not enough mystery. Did have some creepy vibes, just not for me.

I've read so many murder mysteries lately that I have grown a little tired of them, but I can honestly say that this book was absolutely riveting. For some reason, I kept getting "All the Colors of the Dark" vibes from some of the characters. Any of you who have followed my reviews for the last few months will know that that book is one of my top reads this year, so the comparison is a good thing!

The book is set in a sleepy town in South Birmingham, Ireland, in the 1980s and primarily focuses on 14-year-old Ava Bonney. Ava is not your average teenager in that she has a morbid fascination with decomposition - primarily the decomposition of dead animals. Ava likes to sneak out of her apartment at night and walk the road looking for roadkill. She will then take the dead animal to a secret area where she places it and then take notes on the rate of decay over several days. What Ava doesn't know is that there's also someone else lurking in the woods - someone with more sinister intent. When she discovers the body of her classmate, Mickey Grant, lying near her animal graveyard, she is faced with a dilemma - to reveal her secret obsession or stay silent and risk being implicated in a murder investigation.

The other main character is Detective Seth Delahaye, who takes on the murder investigation. Ava refuses to sit back and let others solve the mystery and uses the knowledge she has gained to do her own investigation. It's not long before Delahaye and Ava team up to bring down who is killing teenagers in this small, sleepy town.

While the plot is pretty familiar to avid readers of serial killer thrillers, the characters are what really make this one shine. I absolutely loved both Ava and Detective Delahaye. Ava was whip-smart and very tough for a fourteen-year-old. She comes from a broken home and deals with an abusive mother, and I loved seeing her find a purpose. I also loved the relationship that developed between her and the detective, as he became a source of stability for her. She had a lot of adults in her life who had failed her, and she needed his trust and kindness.

The pacing of the novel is perfect, and I loved how it all unraveled. I am usually pretty good at figuring out who the killer is early on, but that wasn't the case this time around. I was actually surprised by it. I also liked how the author used a mental health diagnosis that I had never heard of before. It made the story that much creepier. I was surprised to learn that this is a debut novel. I am definitely looking forward to reading more by this author in the future.

I had the pleasure of both reading and listening to this one, and I must say I absolutely loved the narrator. Olivia Dowd perfectly portrays all of the characters. She also does a great job hitting all the important beats and keeps the story moving.

I was really surprised by how much I loved this one. The story was captivating, the pacing was perfect, and I absolutely loved these characters. This is an impressive debut, and I look forward to reading more from this author. Fans of serial killer thrillers should definitely bump this one up on their TBR.

I'd describe this as a darker Nancy Drew.

Ava, 14, is a precocious young lady who is interested in anatomy and how bodies break down after death. She studies animals that have died in her neighborhood to learn about this process.

While checking in on a decomposing fox, she spots a teen from her neighborhood who's been missing for weeks. And her knowledge tells her he experienced horrific things prior to his death.

Thus prompts a major investigation as more and more boys go missing from the area. Along the way Ava helps the detective through phone calls where she pretends to be an older woman, knowing they wouldn't take the word of a 14 year old girl.

Who doesn't love a really good murder mystery where the main character is a hyper -analytical teenager similar to Sherlock Holmes? I know I do, and I was hooked on this story fairly quickly.

Ava is not a stranger to death as she is fascinated by roadkill she finds along the roadway. Her analytical mind loves facts and cases related to death and murders. However, it hits close to home when she discovers the body of a classmate along the same path she takes to her scientific "experiments".

She makes an anonymous call to the police to point them in the right direction and the quiet of her small town is broken as an unknown murder is now the focus of the community and Ava may be one of the few people with the knowledge to help crack the case.

This book was really well done. Even thought it feels YA at times, it is dark and gritty, which does not pander to the younger ages. i would recommend an adult review some of the trigger warnings, such as child death, and animal death, before letting anyone too young read this book as it may have some disturbing content.

Great mystery and really good suspense. I can't wait to see what else may come out of this author.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the free audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Ava is a very smart 13 year old who likes to conduct experiments on the decay and anatomy of roadkill animals for her own edification. She's very smart, lovable, and a bid odd which is ok. When young boys start to go missing in her town, she starts investigating along with the police to figure out who the killer is.

There is a lot of good in this dark and macabre novel: there are close friendships and general kindness offsetting the darkness. I did enjoy the friendship between Ava and Detective Delahaye. Heed the trigger warnings but I did not find this overly gruesome. Recommend!

Deadly Animals (audio): with bonus author interview at the end
3⭐️

Overall I liked the story and would recommend to others who enjoy thriller with a splash of horror (tw: animal and children deaths). This was a rare instance where I think I would have liked the ebook version over audiobook. Nothing against the narrator! She did a fabulous job. But I found it difficult to focus for this one. I struggled to keep some of the secondary/minor characters straight due to my lack of focus, but if I were reading it I could back track and double check things easier. I think I would have really liked this as a short story.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this audio ARC. This review will be shared on NetGalley, Goodreads, and Amazon.

Audio Pub Date Nov 12 2024

While the premise of a teen with a morbid hobby who finds a dead body was interesting, I just couldn’t get absorbed into the story and wasn’t motivated enough to finish the story. The author does a good job with the Birmingham setting in the 80s but other than that I wasn’t engaged.

“When everything was drenched in sleep, Ava knew it was time.”

TW: death involving children and animals

💀 murder mystery
🐺 teen sleuths
💀 police procedural
🐺 multiple POVs

Set in the 1980s in Birmingham, England, this book follows 13-year old Ava, who has a fascination with the rate of which animals decompose. One night while sneaking out to conduct research on one of her roadkill projects, she stumbles across the body of a fellow classmate. Not one to sit idly by, Ava is determined to discover who is behind the multiple child murders that plagues her community.

From the first chapter, Ava, gave me young Temperance Brennan from “Bones” vibes, which I loved. As a true crime girl, I loved all the true crime references as well.

I suspected early on who I thought the killer was and was right. However, there were times when I thought things were going paranormal, but I was wrong on that front. Overall, I loved this book and look forward to reading more books from Tierney.

If you love teen sleuth books like A Good Girls Guide to Murder, The Naturals, or Truly Devious, then this book is right up your alley.

Huge thank you to @netgalley & @MacmillanAudio for this ALC in exchange for an honest review! 🫶🏽

I really liked the start of this one, I liked the main character, Ava, and the descriptions of things really put you in her world through her eyes. But there was something about her being a tween that threw me off. Maybe because the writing was so high level and she was doing very adult things, I think maybe I wished she was an adult as well? I think the plot was lacking a little bit as I struggled to listen to it and found myself drifting a few times. The narrator was great for this book. Overall it was a good debut novel, Tierney's writing is wonderful and skilled, and I think it will be well received, but it was lacking a bit for me.

An early teens crime solver? Yes! Set in the early 1980s in Birmingham England, a school age boy is missing. Ava a thirteen year old girl loves to study dead animals and the phases of decomposition. The animals she studies are usually road kill. She has amassed quite a bevy of knowledge regarding the pathology of death. She has recently discovered the body of a fox. She has never conducted a study of the nocturnal processes of desth a night. She has ventured out in the wee hours of the night to study the fox.  On her adventure she stumbles upon the body of the missing boy. She knows that she must report the body to the police. To keep her identity and "body farm" secret, she disguises her voice as an elderly woman. As events move forward she uses her knowledge to assist the police with the investigation. I listened at an advanced listener copy from Macmillan Audio. The narrator Olivia Dowd knocks this book out of the park, she is amazing and delivers the different point of views with incredible accuracy

Story - 5 stars
Narrator - 5 stars

5 stars!
This is such a unique book in the thriller/suspense genre. I don’t know why, but I think the Stranger Things crowd will like it, despite it not being paranormal. Perhaps it’s the 1980’s vibe or the female heroine that does it.

Ava is the queen of this book, a teen sleuth who’s into drawing diagrams of animal body parts. She’s intelligent, odd, and impressive. She slyly helps the detectives figure out who is killing these young boys.

There are moments when I was wondering if it was going to go paranormal on me, but it didn’t go in that direction after all.

I believe this is the author’s debut novel, which is extremely impressive! I’ll be waiting for more!

Also, the audiobook narrator was a perfect match. She had a smooth, soothing voice quality.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and MacMillan Audio for letting me listen to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Deadly Animals follows a peculiar 14 year-old girl as she helps a detective in a serial killer investigation. Ava loves to study dead animals and how they decompose. I went out of my comfort zone on this book, as I am a little squeamish with reading about things like decomposing flesh, but I found that only the first few chapters were the tough ones to get through. Once I knew Ava's personality, I was with her til the end of the book. I didn't love when you find out who the killer is, as I prefer as close to the last page as possible, but it made for a thrilling ending to see everything come together. Truly a unique premise and main character.

There are numerous trigger warnings for this book. While there is animal/child cruelty/death, it happens in past scenes where you are reading about the discovery.

I received an ALC from Macmillan Audio via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Dark, twisted and sometimes gruesome with fascinating details about forensics and pathology you will fall in love with Ava, a brilliant and precocious thirteen-year-old who has a morbid fascination with dead animals, as she helps police discover the serial killer of young boys in 1980s Birmingham, England.