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Jack Caffery #2
The Treatment
Even before it was published, Mo Hayder’s first novel, Birdman , was an international sensation, and when it was published in 1999 it became one of the most talked about thrillers of the year. Now in her dazzling new novel, The Treatment , Mo Hayder explores the deepest recesses of the perverse human mind.
In Brockwell Park, a residential neighbourhood in south London, a husband and wife are found tied up and imprisoned in their house, badly dehydrated after suffering beatings and days without food or water. But worse is to come. Their child is missing.
Young and driven, Detective Inspector Jack Caffery is called in to investigate the abduction of the little boy. When the child’s body is found, Caffery knows from the nature of the attack that his considerable investigative skills will be sorely tried as he attempts to unravel the motive and sequence of events. Especially when he discovers that a tragedy in his own past is indirectly connected to the murder. As Jack digs deeper, and as he attempts to hold his own life together in the face of ever more disturbing revelations about both the past and the present, the real nightmares begin.
In Brockwell Park, a residential neighbourhood in south London, a husband and wife are found tied up and imprisoned in their house, badly dehydrated after suffering beatings and days without food or water. But worse is to come. Their child is missing.
Young and driven, Detective Inspector Jack Caffery is called in to investigate the abduction of the little boy. When the child’s body is found, Caffery knows from the nature of the attack that his considerable investigative skills will be sorely tried as he attempts to unravel the motive and sequence of events. Especially when he discovers that a tragedy in his own past is indirectly connected to the murder. As Jack digs deeper, and as he attempts to hold his own life together in the face of ever more disturbing revelations about both the past and the present, the real nightmares begin.
416 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
684 people are currently reading
10720 people want to read
About the author
Mo Hayder
21 books2,568 followersMo Hayder left school at fifteen. She worked as a barmaid, security guard, film-maker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator and teacher of English as a foreign language in Asia. She had an MA in film from The American University in Washington DC and an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University UK.
Mo lived in Bath with her daughter Lotte-Genevieve. She was also the actress Candy Davis, who was most known as the blonde secretary on “ Are You Being Served?”
Series:
* Jack Caffery
Mo lived in Bath with her daughter Lotte-Genevieve. She was also the actress Candy Davis, who was most known as the blonde secretary on “ Are You Being Served?”
Series:
* Jack Caffery
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,216 reviews
April 7, 2014
Is someone asked me to teach a class in thriller writing (and please don't because I'd be crap), this is the only textbook I would need. It's hard for me to read thrillers because I'm always looking at the scaffolding of the story, and I generally figure things out, but with the Treatment, it was just pure suspension of disbelief all the time, and when the revelation came, I was both shocked and tickled that Mo had managed such a terrific twist. It's a bit dark and mean (a Hayder trademark) but Lordy, do I love this book.
May 21, 2016
I'm at a loss. This was brilliant writing, brilliant characterization (with flawed, REAL people), and breathless plotting. All in all, this should be a 5-star review. BUT this had to have been one of the darkest and most sadistic books I've ever read. Even now, I feel nauseous at some of the passages and the truly hopeless ending. I admire Ms. Hayder's ability to write, but I can't say I will ever read one of her books again. I love horror; I love suspense...I can endure pretty gruesome drama, but Hayder crosses too many lines, digs too deep in the muck, and finally chooses ugliness and despair when she could've made choices that might have left a reader with some sense of hope, instead of the sense of needing to shower. I have read several other of Ms. Hayder's novels, but this one has made me certain I'll never read another.
September 5, 2011
Holy crap.
Mo Hayder has just moved into my number 1 slot for crime fiction. The Treatment closely follows Birdman, so be sure to read her awesome debut before reading this one.
A fair warning though: I have a pretty high tolerance for reading about the evil that people can do, but I lost sleep over this one. Even if you don't have kids, you'd have to be completely without empathy or even humanness to not be affected by the crimes that come out of Hayder's mind here.
Sometimes you may ask yourself why you're allowing these disturbing images and ideas into your head. Certainly anyone (those of the softer persuasions) who I've talked to about this novel must wonder it of me, but anyone who reads intense crime fiction does so for the hope of retribution. The more heinous the crime, the more we root for the home team to find that one little break to nail the monster.
There's very little I want to say about the plot: As in Birdman, DI Jack Caffrey is still haunted by the abduction of his kid brother 25 years ago. Now, there are disturbing parallels to this that he must cope with while on a case involving a child. Caffrey knows his self control is hanging by a thread, he knows he should be pulled off the investigation, but there is no way he can let this case go. Combine this with his tenuous relationship with his girlfriend and it seems just a matter of pages before he rips apart at the seams.
Hayder advances the story using alternating perspectives, a typical formula, but in her hands each thread creates its own tension. I couldn't put it the book down. It is perfectly paced, and the characters are as strongly represented as they were in Birdman.
It's amazing to think Mo Hayder quit school at 15. I saw an interview with her on youtube, and she says it is something she has been embarrassed about, but she has always had a passion for learning and had continued this on her own. It shows. She is a very good writer and maybe one of the best crime writers working today.
I've read a lot of crime fiction, and it takes a lot to jar me. She's done it twice, now. This is unsettling stuff, kiddies, so know that there be demons here. Otherwise, you're hard pressed to find better crime writing. Enjoy the ride.
Mo Hayder has just moved into my number 1 slot for crime fiction. The Treatment closely follows Birdman, so be sure to read her awesome debut before reading this one.
A fair warning though: I have a pretty high tolerance for reading about the evil that people can do, but I lost sleep over this one. Even if you don't have kids, you'd have to be completely without empathy or even humanness to not be affected by the crimes that come out of Hayder's mind here.
Sometimes you may ask yourself why you're allowing these disturbing images and ideas into your head. Certainly anyone (those of the softer persuasions) who I've talked to about this novel must wonder it of me, but anyone who reads intense crime fiction does so for the hope of retribution. The more heinous the crime, the more we root for the home team to find that one little break to nail the monster.
There's very little I want to say about the plot: As in Birdman, DI Jack Caffrey is still haunted by the abduction of his kid brother 25 years ago. Now, there are disturbing parallels to this that he must cope with while on a case involving a child. Caffrey knows his self control is hanging by a thread, he knows he should be pulled off the investigation, but there is no way he can let this case go. Combine this with his tenuous relationship with his girlfriend and it seems just a matter of pages before he rips apart at the seams.
Hayder advances the story using alternating perspectives, a typical formula, but in her hands each thread creates its own tension. I couldn't put it the book down. It is perfectly paced, and the characters are as strongly represented as they were in Birdman.
It's amazing to think Mo Hayder quit school at 15. I saw an interview with her on youtube, and she says it is something she has been embarrassed about, but she has always had a passion for learning and had continued this on her own. It shows. She is a very good writer and maybe one of the best crime writers working today.
I've read a lot of crime fiction, and it takes a lot to jar me. She's done it twice, now. This is unsettling stuff, kiddies, so know that there be demons here. Otherwise, you're hard pressed to find better crime writing. Enjoy the ride.
November 8, 2016
Whilst not my favourite Hayder book, this is still a solid 4 star read and a brilliant installment in the Jack Caffrey series.
I believe that the power of Hayder's writing lies in her raw and unapologetic presentation of crime, landscape and character. She never shows or tells the reader anything, but displays it in a 'warts-and-all' style that I find shocking and yet brilliant. Nothing feels hidden and no character is favored or protected. And yet I still manage to feel affinity towards the main, and yet completely flawed, protagonist and differentiate between the conflicting sides of each case.
Crime fiction has to do a lot, these days, to feel new, as it is a very over-populated genre. It says something about this book that it still has the power to shock and compel, despite being written and set almost two decades ago. It still has a fresh and modern feel as Hayder depicts city life with a grace and beauty, and yet a rawness and honesty, that is just as impactful and relevant today.
Each case is sickening and yet inventive, each criminal is monstrous and yet shrewd and each book manages to traverse the fine line between crime and horror with an almost lyrical quality to the writing that gives me a never appeased appetite for more!
I believe that the power of Hayder's writing lies in her raw and unapologetic presentation of crime, landscape and character. She never shows or tells the reader anything, but displays it in a 'warts-and-all' style that I find shocking and yet brilliant. Nothing feels hidden and no character is favored or protected. And yet I still manage to feel affinity towards the main, and yet completely flawed, protagonist and differentiate between the conflicting sides of each case.
Crime fiction has to do a lot, these days, to feel new, as it is a very over-populated genre. It says something about this book that it still has the power to shock and compel, despite being written and set almost two decades ago. It still has a fresh and modern feel as Hayder depicts city life with a grace and beauty, and yet a rawness and honesty, that is just as impactful and relevant today.
Each case is sickening and yet inventive, each criminal is monstrous and yet shrewd and each book manages to traverse the fine line between crime and horror with an almost lyrical quality to the writing that gives me a never appeased appetite for more!
July 21, 2018
Ο Τζακ Καφερι αναλαμβάνει μια υπόθεση που έχει πολλά κοινά στοιχεία με ένα προσωπικό του δράμα. Προσπαθεί να μείνει αμέτοχος αλλά είναι δύσκολο. Παγιδευμένος ανάμεσα στο άλυτο μυστήριο του παρελθόντος του και στην υπόθεση που έχει αναλάβει, προσπαθεί απεγνωσμένα να βρει την άκρη του νήματος.
Σε αυτό το δεύτερο βιβλίο με πρωταγωνιστή τον ντετέκτιβ Κάφερι, η ιστορία είναι πιο ιδιαίτερη και το στήσιμο της πιο δεμένο, γεγονός που δείχνει ότι η Mo Hayder ξέρει να γράφει...
Σε αυτό το δεύτερο βιβλίο με πρωταγωνιστή τον ντετέκτιβ Κάφερι, η ιστορία είναι πιο ιδιαίτερη και το στήσιμο της πιο δεμένο, γεγονός που δείχνει ότι η Mo Hayder ξέρει να γράφει...
April 2, 2025
3.25 stars
This was indeed disturbing at times, but it still isn't the most disturbing book I have read. That honor is still held by "The Girl Next Door" by Jack Ketchum 💀
The beginning was kind of slow, but at the 40% mark it kind of picked up. The story was really disturbing as it involved CSA (nothing graphic was described on page THANK GOD).
My main issue with this book was how unlikable Jack, the mmc, was. I hated him actually😅 I loved his sassy lesbian boss though 😅 He was just kind of selfish to me and he did something that was just unforgivable for me and I couldn't root for him anymore. Another issue I had was the random switch of povs; it was confusing😭 Also, this was too long, it meandered a lot especially with Jack and Becky's relationship drama; it's almost like it was written for TV, which isn't a bad thing, but for me here, it didn't work that well.
Also, that ending?? wdym 😭😭 I understand that it is kind of a pragmatic ending because life isn't just full of happy endings, but that was just so cruel it hurt my heart💔
I think if you are a fan of Karin Slaughter and you have read Pretty Girls and were able to get through how disturbing that book was, you would like this one. I wouldn't recommend this book for a reader trying out this genre though as I think it would be too much😅
Overall, this was an decent crime thriller, but I've read better and far more disturbing stuff😅
This was indeed disturbing at times, but it still isn't the most disturbing book I have read. That honor is still held by "The Girl Next Door" by Jack Ketchum 💀
The beginning was kind of slow, but at the 40% mark it kind of picked up. The story was really disturbing as it involved CSA (nothing graphic was described on page THANK GOD).
My main issue with this book was how unlikable Jack, the mmc, was. I hated him actually😅 I loved his sassy lesbian boss though 😅 He was just kind of selfish to me and he did something that was just unforgivable for me and I couldn't root for him anymore. Another issue I had was the random switch of povs; it was confusing😭 Also, this was too long, it meandered a lot especially with Jack and Becky's relationship drama; it's almost like it was written for TV, which isn't a bad thing, but for me here, it didn't work that well.
Also, that ending?? wdym 😭😭 I understand that it is kind of a pragmatic ending because life isn't just full of happy endings, but that was just so cruel it hurt my heart💔
I think if you are a fan of Karin Slaughter and you have read Pretty Girls and were able to get through how disturbing that book was, you would like this one. I wouldn't recommend this book for a reader trying out this genre though as I think it would be too much😅
Overall, this was an decent crime thriller, but I've read better and far more disturbing stuff😅
July 29, 2021
RIP Clare Dunkel who used the name Mo Hayder
1 January 1962 to 27 July 2021. Only 59. That's so sad.
Original review follows.
*******
In this ugly story about depravity, child murder and florid insanity we follow your standard flawed rule-breaking detective hero for the most part, but dive off into other narratives when the author feels like it, so the tangled tale comes across hectically, chaotically, but with a propulsion that doesn't slacken for all of its 480 pages. If you can take the punishment, it's harrowing but good stuff.
I read crime fiction every once in a while to be reminded of a whole other literary discipline. Whereas, as we know, one sentence from the great literary prose stylists is as recognisable as DNA, you would be hard pressed to spot an entire paragraph from Mo Hayder in a police line-up. She's brisk, she never dawdles (perhaps dawdling about is what you do if you have a prose style) but she's virtually anonymous. But what this (and other) crime novels have to do if they're any good is orchestrate. I think she's very good at that.
If you write about crime there are a few difficult challenges. Variations of your characters and your situations will likely have appeared in a great many novels already – the snitches, the girlfriends, the wives, the cynicism, the luck, the methods, the violence, the cars, the drugs, the forensics, the plots & the cops & the robbers, blah blah blah, we've seen it and read it all before. You have to get over the essential cliched nature of crime itself. So that's the push.
On the other hand, us citizens like to have a ringside seat and see a great set-up and a cathartic denouement where the bad guys get what's coming oof yes a big smack in the kisser and maybe more. So there's the pull. And the author orchestrates all these elements - the chaos, resembling the way life is, is illusory, which we as readers know, because the author actually understands all these puzzling bizarre elements and where they will fit and how they come to explain. The author carves the Rosetta Stone then breaks it into pieces and throws the pieces around wildly.
I pretty much hated one major character here, DCI Daniella Sounness, who calls herself an "old dyke" and whose dykishness (can we say?) gets hammered home way too much, along with her Scottish dialect. This was having your gay character walk around with a neon sign saying "SYMPATHETIC GAY CHARACTER". I thought the damaged girlfriend of the troubled cop was slightly annoying too, but apparently this is book 2 of a series and her story is all of book one, so I'll give her a pass. The villains were genuinely horrible. The entire story was as lurid as it gets but for some reason – I think it was Mo Hayder's great skill – didn't topple over into implausibility, although I see that some other reviewers thought it did.
So yeah, 3.5 stars. Recommended - if you can take it.
1 January 1962 to 27 July 2021. Only 59. That's so sad.
Original review follows.
*******
In this ugly story about depravity, child murder and florid insanity we follow your standard flawed rule-breaking detective hero for the most part, but dive off into other narratives when the author feels like it, so the tangled tale comes across hectically, chaotically, but with a propulsion that doesn't slacken for all of its 480 pages. If you can take the punishment, it's harrowing but good stuff.
I read crime fiction every once in a while to be reminded of a whole other literary discipline. Whereas, as we know, one sentence from the great literary prose stylists is as recognisable as DNA, you would be hard pressed to spot an entire paragraph from Mo Hayder in a police line-up. She's brisk, she never dawdles (perhaps dawdling about is what you do if you have a prose style) but she's virtually anonymous. But what this (and other) crime novels have to do if they're any good is orchestrate. I think she's very good at that.
If you write about crime there are a few difficult challenges. Variations of your characters and your situations will likely have appeared in a great many novels already – the snitches, the girlfriends, the wives, the cynicism, the luck, the methods, the violence, the cars, the drugs, the forensics, the plots & the cops & the robbers, blah blah blah, we've seen it and read it all before. You have to get over the essential cliched nature of crime itself. So that's the push.
On the other hand, us citizens like to have a ringside seat and see a great set-up and a cathartic denouement where the bad guys get what's coming oof yes a big smack in the kisser and maybe more. So there's the pull. And the author orchestrates all these elements - the chaos, resembling the way life is, is illusory, which we as readers know, because the author actually understands all these puzzling bizarre elements and where they will fit and how they come to explain. The author carves the Rosetta Stone then breaks it into pieces and throws the pieces around wildly.
I pretty much hated one major character here, DCI Daniella Sounness, who calls herself an "old dyke" and whose dykishness (can we say?) gets hammered home way too much, along with her Scottish dialect. This was having your gay character walk around with a neon sign saying "SYMPATHETIC GAY CHARACTER". I thought the damaged girlfriend of the troubled cop was slightly annoying too, but apparently this is book 2 of a series and her story is all of book one, so I'll give her a pass. The villains were genuinely horrible. The entire story was as lurid as it gets but for some reason – I think it was Mo Hayder's great skill – didn't topple over into implausibility, although I see that some other reviewers thought it did.
So yeah, 3.5 stars. Recommended - if you can take it.
May 29, 2012
The first thing you have to know about this book, if you're intending to read it, is that it has paedophiles in it. A veritable backing chorus of them. If you don't want to read about that, don't read this book. I couldn't tell this from the blurb, but hey, paedophiles are a potentially interesting premise for a mystery, and not something I read about often. So I went with it.
Your basic plot is as follows: mother and father are discovered after having supposed to have been on holiday, chained to radiators in their house and seriously ill after having been there for three days. Their young son is missing. Enter DI Jack Caffrey, detective extraordinaire with excellent reputation and temper issues, who had something suspiciously similar happen to his brother many years ago and can't let go of the fact. Many soliloquies commence, there are autopsy scenes like it's going out of fashion, and people called Benedicte and Danniella get far fewer scenes than they ought to have had. Suspicion falls on the father, so obviously it wasn't him, and things get very confusing, before finally it turns out to be some sick bugger and DI Jack Caffrey Extraordinaire kicks the shit out of him. From what I can gather, he kicked the shit out of the criminal at the end of the last book, too.
The thing about this book is that I see all the things that Hayder was trying to do, and apart from the one where she made the reader really uncomfortable, I don't think she really managed it very well. There was a lot of uncomfortable - and some of it was interesting uncomfortable. The trouble is, or I think, anyway, that if you're going to write a book that centres around paedophilia, you've got to treat it right. And I don't really think this did. You need a motive that isn't just "Because he's a nutter! Amirite?", and while I like books that are shocking, for many, many reasons, I felt like the shocking was just gratuitous a lot of the time. It didn't really do it for me. I wasn't scared, I wasn't really even that interested by about 200 pages in.
It tried ot be suspenseful, but the way it went about it was bizarre - at the end of a scene, someone would have a breakthrough, or see something important, or discover some connection, and the book would hint that the connection had been made, but wouldn't tell you what it was. Then the details would be mentioned in passing halfway through the next chapter, as if they were unimportant. Now, I object to this partly because my personal preference is to have the same amount of information as the detective, so I can have a go at figuring it out too. But that aside, it was completely bizarre - why make a big thing out of something one minute, and then wave it off as "oh yeah, and then this happened" the next? Not a lot of detecting went on, either. It was mostly rewinding smutty videos and an awful lot of incompetence. Like, an awful lot. Like, you are seriously asking me to suspend my disbelief here, this is ridiculous-type a lot.
There wasn't a single character I liked. Jack Caffery needs a smack upside the head, a course of therapy and a different job. I had not an ounce of sympathy for him. Towards the beginning, I wondered if he was a bit of a Mary Sue - what with being fancied by half his office, a rising star at his job and with requisite relevant Troubled Past. Later on, it became fairly obvious that he wasn't, but I still didn't like him any better for it. His girlfriend, Becky... now I really wanted to like her. She had a fair bit to recommend her, but in the actual execution of the writing she seemed just like another supremely gorgeous and talented Troubled Soul, and I couldn't bring myself to feel much sympathy for her either. And then - oh god! I have to mention the Comedy Scotswoman. Any character who has to have their speech written out "so ye ken aboot their accent" has immediately lost my attention. And when they are a pretty stereotypical lesbian with a really silly name... nope, I wanted to like her, too, but I couldn't. Or maybe I couldnae.
Frankly, I think this book went for Gritty and Hardcore and missed both by a mile. When I got it off the shelf, I wanted to like it. The premise was interesting. But in the end, I'm pretty disappointed about how little there was to enjoy.
Your basic plot is as follows: mother and father are discovered after having supposed to have been on holiday, chained to radiators in their house and seriously ill after having been there for three days. Their young son is missing. Enter DI Jack Caffrey, detective extraordinaire with excellent reputation and temper issues, who had something suspiciously similar happen to his brother many years ago and can't let go of the fact. Many soliloquies commence, there are autopsy scenes like it's going out of fashion, and people called Benedicte and Danniella get far fewer scenes than they ought to have had. Suspicion falls on the father, so obviously it wasn't him, and things get very confusing, before finally it turns out to be some sick bugger and DI Jack Caffrey Extraordinaire kicks the shit out of him. From what I can gather, he kicked the shit out of the criminal at the end of the last book, too.
The thing about this book is that I see all the things that Hayder was trying to do, and apart from the one where she made the reader really uncomfortable, I don't think she really managed it very well. There was a lot of uncomfortable - and some of it was interesting uncomfortable. The trouble is, or I think, anyway, that if you're going to write a book that centres around paedophilia, you've got to treat it right. And I don't really think this did. You need a motive that isn't just "Because he's a nutter! Amirite?", and while I like books that are shocking, for many, many reasons, I felt like the shocking was just gratuitous a lot of the time. It didn't really do it for me. I wasn't scared, I wasn't really even that interested by about 200 pages in.
It tried ot be suspenseful, but the way it went about it was bizarre - at the end of a scene, someone would have a breakthrough, or see something important, or discover some connection, and the book would hint that the connection had been made, but wouldn't tell you what it was. Then the details would be mentioned in passing halfway through the next chapter, as if they were unimportant. Now, I object to this partly because my personal preference is to have the same amount of information as the detective, so I can have a go at figuring it out too. But that aside, it was completely bizarre - why make a big thing out of something one minute, and then wave it off as "oh yeah, and then this happened" the next? Not a lot of detecting went on, either. It was mostly rewinding smutty videos and an awful lot of incompetence. Like, an awful lot. Like, you are seriously asking me to suspend my disbelief here, this is ridiculous-type a lot.
There wasn't a single character I liked. Jack Caffery needs a smack upside the head, a course of therapy and a different job. I had not an ounce of sympathy for him. Towards the beginning, I wondered if he was a bit of a Mary Sue - what with being fancied by half his office, a rising star at his job and with requisite relevant Troubled Past. Later on, it became fairly obvious that he wasn't, but I still didn't like him any better for it. His girlfriend, Becky... now I really wanted to like her. She had a fair bit to recommend her, but in the actual execution of the writing she seemed just like another supremely gorgeous and talented Troubled Soul, and I couldn't bring myself to feel much sympathy for her either. And then - oh god! I have to mention the Comedy Scotswoman. Any character who has to have their speech written out "so ye ken aboot their accent" has immediately lost my attention. And when they are a pretty stereotypical lesbian with a really silly name... nope, I wanted to like her, too, but I couldn't. Or maybe I couldnae.
Frankly, I think this book went for Gritty and Hardcore and missed both by a mile. When I got it off the shelf, I wanted to like it. The premise was interesting. But in the end, I'm pretty disappointed about how little there was to enjoy.
Read
February 22, 2025DNF. Read 70% of the book, but can't continue anymore. It's too disturbing and gruesome, even for me.
February 8, 2017
I am usually not a fan where the villain is an evil monster without much human elements or backstory to understand the path they are on. Such is the case here with its pedophile serial killer, but Hayder did a great job with the obsessive drive of her flawed hero, British detective Jack Caffery, and with the pacing and atmospherics of her presentation.
In the first book, we learned about how Jack is haunted by the disappearance of his brother when they were children and his frustration in failing to prove the guilt of a neighbor, who served time for child abuse. The story here starts with the discovery of a couple tied up and left to near starvation and the ensuing desperate hunt for their missing son in the nearby woods. Jack is obviously motivated from his past to pull out all the stops to find the suspected pedophile, in process getting so twisted up as to begin breaking rules that his superiors can’t countenance and undermining his relationship with his girlfriend, who is recovering from her own abusive past.
While in the first book I thought that the elements of horrific violence were a bit gratuitous and Gothic, I felt that in this tale she showed better restraint in that area, leaving much to the imagination. As with Hitchcock’s movies, that approach was more powerful in the long run. As it turns out that the foe is a serial perpetrator and killer, we driven to keep the pages turning to relieve out heartbreak and Jack’s anguish over mistakes made by him and others in missing significant clues to the killer’s identity and targets. Despite her use of many tropes of the genre, I was impressed with the vivid characters and thrilling propulsion of the plotting. After a suitable interval, I know I can’t resist coming back to the series for another ride on the wild dark side.
In the first book, we learned about how Jack is haunted by the disappearance of his brother when they were children and his frustration in failing to prove the guilt of a neighbor, who served time for child abuse. The story here starts with the discovery of a couple tied up and left to near starvation and the ensuing desperate hunt for their missing son in the nearby woods. Jack is obviously motivated from his past to pull out all the stops to find the suspected pedophile, in process getting so twisted up as to begin breaking rules that his superiors can’t countenance and undermining his relationship with his girlfriend, who is recovering from her own abusive past.
While in the first book I thought that the elements of horrific violence were a bit gratuitous and Gothic, I felt that in this tale she showed better restraint in that area, leaving much to the imagination. As with Hitchcock’s movies, that approach was more powerful in the long run. As it turns out that the foe is a serial perpetrator and killer, we driven to keep the pages turning to relieve out heartbreak and Jack’s anguish over mistakes made by him and others in missing significant clues to the killer’s identity and targets. Despite her use of many tropes of the genre, I was impressed with the vivid characters and thrilling propulsion of the plotting. After a suitable interval, I know I can’t resist coming back to the series for another ride on the wild dark side.
February 27, 2019
EXCERPT: The back of the house was silent and dark, the fence rotten with water. He moved quickly through the garden, his chest tightening as he got nearer. And now - why hadn’t he watched more carefully? - he saw that along the metal frame of the broken old annexe flies gathered like clusters of hanging black fruit, rippling lazily.
He used his Swiss army knife to gouge away the ancient putty of the kitchen window, flaking wood and paint onto his sweatshirt. Levering out the panel pins, he eased the pane from the frame and the stale trapped air inside the house came at him like a train. He could smell what was in the bathroom - the stench that stimulates the rarely stimulated root of humanness - the smell of opened human bowels, the smell of the dead sitting up in their graves and exhaling into the night. He could hear the flies - No way, no fucking way, this can't be happening - as he reached in, turned the key and opened the back door.
ABOUT THIS BOOK: A quiet residential street in south London.
A husband and wife are discovered, imprisoned in their own home. Badly dehydrated, they've been bound and beaten. He is close to death. But worse is to come: their young son is missing.
When Detective Inspector Jack Caffery is called in to investigate, the similarities with events in his own past make it impossible for him to view this new crime dispassionately.
And as he digs deeper - as he attempts to hold his own life together in the face of ever more disturbing revelations about both his past and his present - the real nightmare begins ...
MY THOUGHTS: Mo Hayder certainly doesn't pull any punches with her writing. It is brutal and raw, at times quite shocking. It is dark and ugly. But there is nothing in there that isn't happening in our society. And that is the important thing to remember. It happens. We can't pretend it doesn't. And perhaps the more we, the public, know about how these people (and I use the word 'people' very loosely) operate and think, the more aware we are, the more effective we can be in preventing this abomination.
The characters are complex. At times I was yelling at Jack, 'No! Don't do this!' even though I could understand why he was doing what he did. And Rebecca, damaged, and struggling with her secret. There is more than one moral dilemma in this book. And, strangely enough, a little humor (the judgemental workman, completely unaware of what he has witnessed).
I can't say that I enjoyed this book, but it did what I think it was probably intended to do.
Please be aware that this book refers to and describes paedophilia, at times graphically.
😨😨😨😨
THE AUTHOR:Hayder left school at fifteen. She worked as a barmaid, security guard, film-maker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator and teacher of English as a foreign language in Asia. She has an MA in film from The American University in Washington DC and an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University UK.
Mo lives in Bath with her daughter Lotte-Genevieve.
DISCLOSURE: I own my copy of The Treatment by Mo Hayder, published by Transworld Publishers, Bantam Press. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.
Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on my webpage https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...
He used his Swiss army knife to gouge away the ancient putty of the kitchen window, flaking wood and paint onto his sweatshirt. Levering out the panel pins, he eased the pane from the frame and the stale trapped air inside the house came at him like a train. He could smell what was in the bathroom - the stench that stimulates the rarely stimulated root of humanness - the smell of opened human bowels, the smell of the dead sitting up in their graves and exhaling into the night. He could hear the flies - No way, no fucking way, this can't be happening - as he reached in, turned the key and opened the back door.
ABOUT THIS BOOK: A quiet residential street in south London.
A husband and wife are discovered, imprisoned in their own home. Badly dehydrated, they've been bound and beaten. He is close to death. But worse is to come: their young son is missing.
When Detective Inspector Jack Caffery is called in to investigate, the similarities with events in his own past make it impossible for him to view this new crime dispassionately.
And as he digs deeper - as he attempts to hold his own life together in the face of ever more disturbing revelations about both his past and his present - the real nightmare begins ...
MY THOUGHTS: Mo Hayder certainly doesn't pull any punches with her writing. It is brutal and raw, at times quite shocking. It is dark and ugly. But there is nothing in there that isn't happening in our society. And that is the important thing to remember. It happens. We can't pretend it doesn't. And perhaps the more we, the public, know about how these people (and I use the word 'people' very loosely) operate and think, the more aware we are, the more effective we can be in preventing this abomination.
The characters are complex. At times I was yelling at Jack, 'No! Don't do this!' even though I could understand why he was doing what he did. And Rebecca, damaged, and struggling with her secret. There is more than one moral dilemma in this book. And, strangely enough, a little humor (the judgemental workman, completely unaware of what he has witnessed).
I can't say that I enjoyed this book, but it did what I think it was probably intended to do.
Please be aware that this book refers to and describes paedophilia, at times graphically.
😨😨😨😨
THE AUTHOR:Hayder left school at fifteen. She worked as a barmaid, security guard, film-maker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator and teacher of English as a foreign language in Asia. She has an MA in film from The American University in Washington DC and an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University UK.
Mo lives in Bath with her daughter Lotte-Genevieve.
DISCLOSURE: I own my copy of The Treatment by Mo Hayder, published by Transworld Publishers, Bantam Press. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.
Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on my webpage https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...
December 12, 2016
Whew! This is a tense one!
This is the 2nd book in the series. I like how a couple story lines carried over from the 1st so we learn a bit more about Jack Caffrey.
The murder mystery in this one is very dark. Obviously, because it's about murder but moreso because of who the victims are. Not for everyone but i am looking forward to Jack's next case!
This is the 2nd book in the series. I like how a couple story lines carried over from the 1st so we learn a bit more about Jack Caffrey.
The murder mystery in this one is very dark. Obviously, because it's about murder but moreso because of who the victims are. Not for everyone but i am looking forward to Jack's next case!
September 15, 2022
This one gets incredibly dark and grotesque. Think Karin Slaughter, but maybe even darker. Soso horrific
Only downside is Jack is not a likeable character. Which I think is the point, but I struggled at times because he is just so awful.
Only downside is Jack is not a likeable character. Which I think is the point, but I struggled at times because he is just so awful.
August 27, 2017
Dual review with Swedish first and then English!
SWEDISH REVIEW
Behandlingen är bok två i Jack Caffery serien, men kan läsas fristående.
Vad kan jag annat än säga än att när man inte tror att det kan bli värre så blir det så i boken. Behandlingen är i mångt och mycket en mycket obehaglig bok. Det finns nog inget värre ämne att läsa om än pedofiler och i denna bok får man sannerligen en mörk inblick i en värld man helst skulle önska inte fanns.
Mo Hayder är en lysande författare, varje bok jag har läst av henne har varit fantastiskt, denna är inget undantag. Dock är denna bok den värsta jag läst av henne. Behandlingen är kanske inte den mest skrämmande jag bok jag någonsin har läst, men definitivt en av mest obehagliga och jag önskar det var stycken jag kunde få glömma bort för gott.
Boken är också djupt tragiskt, på så många sätt, från Jack Caffery egna trauma från barndomen med en bror som försvann och aldrig hittades till de stackars utsatta barnen. Jag ville ett flertal gånger under boken gång bara skrika åt poliserna att hitta mördaren innan det var för sent för nästa familj. För som sagt, detta är en mardröm som inte slutar med försvinnandet av en pojke...
Mycket bra bok, dock mycket obehaglig och jag rekommenderar den bara till läsare som klarar sådana här mörka teman.
Tack till Modernista för recensionsexemplaret!
ENGLISH REVIEW
The Treatment is book two in the Jack Caffery series but it can be read as a stand alone.
What else can I say than that, when you do not think it could get worse, it does the book. The Treatment is in many ways a very unpleasant book. I think there is nothing worse to read about than pedophiles, and in this book, you certainly get a dark insight into a world one would have hoped didn't exist.
Mo Hayder is a brilliant author, every book I have read by her has been amazing, this is no exception. However, this book is by far the worst I read by her. The Treatment may not be the scariest book I've ever read, but definitely, one of the most unpleasant and I wish I could forget some of the passages from the book for good.
The book is also deeply tragic, in so many ways, from Jack Caffery's own childhood trauma with a brother who disappeared and was never found to the poor jeopardized children. I wanted to scream at the police several times during the book to just find the murderer before it was too late for the next family. This is a nightmare that does not end with the disappearance of one boy ...
The Treatment is a very good book, but also very unpleasant and I only recommend it to readers who can handle such dark themes.
Thanks to Modernista for the review copy!
SWEDISH REVIEW
Behandlingen är bok två i Jack Caffery serien, men kan läsas fristående.
Vad kan jag annat än säga än att när man inte tror att det kan bli värre så blir det så i boken. Behandlingen är i mångt och mycket en mycket obehaglig bok. Det finns nog inget värre ämne att läsa om än pedofiler och i denna bok får man sannerligen en mörk inblick i en värld man helst skulle önska inte fanns.
Mo Hayder är en lysande författare, varje bok jag har läst av henne har varit fantastiskt, denna är inget undantag. Dock är denna bok den värsta jag läst av henne. Behandlingen är kanske inte den mest skrämmande jag bok jag någonsin har läst, men definitivt en av mest obehagliga och jag önskar det var stycken jag kunde få glömma bort för gott.
Boken är också djupt tragiskt, på så många sätt, från Jack Caffery egna trauma från barndomen med en bror som försvann och aldrig hittades till de stackars utsatta barnen. Jag ville ett flertal gånger under boken gång bara skrika åt poliserna att hitta mördaren innan det var för sent för nästa familj. För som sagt, detta är en mardröm som inte slutar med försvinnandet av en pojke...
Mycket bra bok, dock mycket obehaglig och jag rekommenderar den bara till läsare som klarar sådana här mörka teman.
Tack till Modernista för recensionsexemplaret!
ENGLISH REVIEW
The Treatment is book two in the Jack Caffery series but it can be read as a stand alone.
What else can I say than that, when you do not think it could get worse, it does the book. The Treatment is in many ways a very unpleasant book. I think there is nothing worse to read about than pedophiles, and in this book, you certainly get a dark insight into a world one would have hoped didn't exist.
Mo Hayder is a brilliant author, every book I have read by her has been amazing, this is no exception. However, this book is by far the worst I read by her. The Treatment may not be the scariest book I've ever read, but definitely, one of the most unpleasant and I wish I could forget some of the passages from the book for good.
The book is also deeply tragic, in so many ways, from Jack Caffery's own childhood trauma with a brother who disappeared and was never found to the poor jeopardized children. I wanted to scream at the police several times during the book to just find the murderer before it was too late for the next family. This is a nightmare that does not end with the disappearance of one boy ...
The Treatment is a very good book, but also very unpleasant and I only recommend it to readers who can handle such dark themes.
Thanks to Modernista for the review copy!
August 11, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soY98...
O realizador belga Hans Herbots filmou "De behandeling/The Treatment" com base no livro de Mo Hayder
”O Homem da Noite” no original ”The Treatment” (2001) é segundo romance da escritora inglesa Mo Hayder (n. 1962) que tem como protagonista o inspector-chefe Jack Caffery.
Num dia de Verão, numa zona residencial perto de Brockwell park, no sul de Londres, um casal, marido e mulher, Alex e Carmel Peach, são encontrados amarrados na sua própria casa. Estão ambos desidratados, foram atados e espancados, o seu filho Rory Peach de apenas oito anos de idade desapareceu.
Este acontecimento traumático reaviva a memória de Jack Caffery; também o seu irmão Ewan foi sequestrado e desapareceu, sem deixar rasto, com nove anos de idade; simultaneamente, o detective tem que ajudar a sua namorada Rebecca a ultrapassar e a recuperar de um trauma violento.
Mo Hayder escreve um excelente policial, com detalhes gráficos absolutamente perturbadores, construindo um enredo com mestria – tal como já nos habituara em ”Os Pássaros da Morte” (1999) -, com o atormentado e inteligente detective, Jack Caffery, coadjuvado pela detective Danniella Souness, entrando gradualmente numa investigação labiríntica, entre o presente e o passado, investigando e compilando informações que são essenciais, não só para as averiguações em curso, mas, igualmente, descortinando vínculos análogos sobre histórias criminais antigas.
”O Homem da Noite” aborda a temática da pedofilia, directamente, e, indirectamente, relata relações incestuosas; englobando de uma forma impiedosa as agressões sexuais infantis e a pornografia infantil; nesse contexto, não é um livro de leitura aprazível, nomeadamente, porque relata de uma forma dolorosa o drama das perversões e dos vícios ocultos.
”O Homem da Noite” é um envolvente policial, sobre uma temática angustiante e chocante.
O realizador belga Hans Herbots filmou "De behandeling/The Treatment" com base no livro de Mo Hayder
”O Homem da Noite” no original ”The Treatment” (2001) é segundo romance da escritora inglesa Mo Hayder (n. 1962) que tem como protagonista o inspector-chefe Jack Caffery.
Num dia de Verão, numa zona residencial perto de Brockwell park, no sul de Londres, um casal, marido e mulher, Alex e Carmel Peach, são encontrados amarrados na sua própria casa. Estão ambos desidratados, foram atados e espancados, o seu filho Rory Peach de apenas oito anos de idade desapareceu.
Este acontecimento traumático reaviva a memória de Jack Caffery; também o seu irmão Ewan foi sequestrado e desapareceu, sem deixar rasto, com nove anos de idade; simultaneamente, o detective tem que ajudar a sua namorada Rebecca a ultrapassar e a recuperar de um trauma violento.
Mo Hayder escreve um excelente policial, com detalhes gráficos absolutamente perturbadores, construindo um enredo com mestria – tal como já nos habituara em ”Os Pássaros da Morte” (1999) -, com o atormentado e inteligente detective, Jack Caffery, coadjuvado pela detective Danniella Souness, entrando gradualmente numa investigação labiríntica, entre o presente e o passado, investigando e compilando informações que são essenciais, não só para as averiguações em curso, mas, igualmente, descortinando vínculos análogos sobre histórias criminais antigas.
”O Homem da Noite” aborda a temática da pedofilia, directamente, e, indirectamente, relata relações incestuosas; englobando de uma forma impiedosa as agressões sexuais infantis e a pornografia infantil; nesse contexto, não é um livro de leitura aprazível, nomeadamente, porque relata de uma forma dolorosa o drama das perversões e dos vícios ocultos.
”O Homem da Noite” é um envolvente policial, sobre uma temática angustiante e chocante.
June 16, 2021
Wow.
This book is very dark, twisted and gripping.
It is about all the things in society we don’t want to talk about or hear about.
I don’t think saying I enjoyed it would be right as it’s not a book you can “enjoy” if that makes sense. But I wanted to finish it, in fact I needed to finish it. But it makes for a hard read and definitely stays on your mind once you finish.
Cannot wait to continue on through the series.
If you have a strong stomach and you want your thoughts, boundaries and feelings pushed to the limit I fully recommend. Mo Hayder is not afraid to talk about the dark scary parts of society and I love her for bringing these things to the forefront
Excellent job Mo Hayder!
This book is very dark, twisted and gripping.
It is about all the things in society we don’t want to talk about or hear about.
I don’t think saying I enjoyed it would be right as it’s not a book you can “enjoy” if that makes sense. But I wanted to finish it, in fact I needed to finish it. But it makes for a hard read and definitely stays on your mind once you finish.
Cannot wait to continue on through the series.
If you have a strong stomach and you want your thoughts, boundaries and feelings pushed to the limit I fully recommend. Mo Hayder is not afraid to talk about the dark scary parts of society and I love her for bringing these things to the forefront
Excellent job Mo Hayder!
December 30, 2019
This is the 2nd of the Jack Caffery series, and I liked it even better than the first! Once again Jack is called upon to solve a particularly horrific crime. This time it involves rings of pedophiles, and brings forward some of the story of what happened to Jack's little brother (unsolved disappearance, suspect is pedophile neighbor).
Once again, the police detective solving and clues is very well done. The criminals in this book are horrific—the details about the ring of child abusers was terrifying. And finding out some of the back story of Jack's brother was very intriguing.
These books are not for the squeamish—there are lots of gruesome details both about murders and about abuse of children. Without giving away any spoilers, I would say that if you like thrillers, detective novels or books about serial killers you will NOT be able to put this book down!
Once again, the police detective solving and clues is very well done. The criminals in this book are horrific—the details about the ring of child abusers was terrifying. And finding out some of the back story of Jack's brother was very intriguing.
These books are not for the squeamish—there are lots of gruesome details both about murders and about abuse of children. Without giving away any spoilers, I would say that if you like thrillers, detective novels or books about serial killers you will NOT be able to put this book down!
January 14, 2018
Για την ακρίβεια 2,5 ✨. Δεν μου έκοψε την ανάσα όπως γράφει στο εξώφυλλο. Το βιβλίο καταπιάνεται με το θέμα της παιδεραστίας δίνοντας σε κάποια σημεία αρκετά αρρωστημένες λεπτομέρειες. Δεν εντυπωσιάστηκα ούτε από την πλοκή του ούτε από τους χαρακτήρες του. Μαλιστα, οταν η ιστορία φτάνει στο τέλος αφήνει στον αναγνώστη αναπάντητα ερωτήματα.
April 13, 2017
I've been looking forward to reading this book, especially after reading the first book in the series, 'The Birdman'. If it wasn't for trying to stay disciplined with my 'to read' stack, I could see myself going on a Mo Hayder binge. This is powerful stuff. I would have to read them back to back to make a fair judgement, but I think this may be better than Thomas Harris' Hannibal series.
I added this to my Halloween season list and though it is a crime novel, it is definitely a classic horror, mentioned by many critics as one of the top 10 horror novels. There is some extremely disturbing content involved with the story, so this is not for the faint of heart. And if you like horror but are still uneasy with particular subject matters, be warned, the sicko's in this one are pedophiles. In my opinion the subject matter doesn't take away the fact that this is a brilliantly written and plotted novel.
Having said that, let me vent a little here. Many of you know I'm pretty outspoken and I like to use a little humor to lighten things up, so bear with me here. Reading the reviews I noticed, as usual, a few folks who gave this book 1 star because they didn't like the subject matter. That's your opinion, and you are welcome to it. Well, here's my opinion; you can shove that 1 star up your ass along with the 1 star you probably gave Lolita. You may as well be giving Tolkien 1 star because some orcs killed some cute little elves. For christs sake, read the synopsis... if you don't agree with the sub-genre then don't read it... save the author the trashing of their work just because of your sensibilities. Ok, done venting.
This book is scary, multi-layered and character driven. Jack Caffery is a good character, but I thought chief inspector Souness, a self proclaimed dike, was one of the best supporting characters I have read in a while. She actually brought a lot of life and personality to the story that made the darkness a little bearable. There are a few more books in this series and from what I've read in the first two, I can't wait to immerse myself in some more.
So, for those of you who like horror-crime and can stomach the subject matter, this is a novel I would highly recommend. And if I've offended anyone, please forgive me. Sometimes the truth hurts... almost as much as that star in your ass!
October 21, 2017
Δεύτερη ιστορία για τον επιθεωρητή Κάφερι και ακόμα πιο διεστραμμένη από την πρώτη. Η Mo Hayder έχει τα θεματάκια της αλλιώς δεν θα μπορούσε να σκεφτεί αυτές τις ιστορίες. Καταπιάνεται με το θέμα της παιδεραστίας και φτιάχνει μία υπόθεση στην οποία ορισμένες σκηνές είναι αηδιαστικά λεπτομερείς. Όπως και το πρώτο της βιβλίο, δεν είναι για άτομα που δεν έχουν γερό στομάχι.
Σε γενικές γραμμές είναι ένα πάρα πολύ καλό αστυνομικό θρίλερ που συνεχίζει στο ίδιο επίπεδο με το πρώτο βιβλίο της σειράς. Όμως για κάποιο λόγο μέχρι λίγο παραπάνω από τη μέση, μου φάνηκε πιο «κουραστικό» από το Φονικό Κελάηδισμα χωρίς αυτό να υποβαθμίζει το επίπεδο του!
Πάμε για το τρίτο τώρα!
Σε γενικές γραμμές είναι ένα πάρα πολύ καλό αστυνομικό θρίλερ που συνεχίζει στο ίδιο επίπεδο με το πρώτο βιβλίο της σειράς. Όμως για κάποιο λόγο μέχρι λίγο παραπάνω από τη μέση, μου φάνηκε πιο «κουραστικό» από το Φονικό Κελάηδισμα χωρίς αυτό να υποβαθμίζει το επίπεδο του!
Πάμε για το τρίτο τώρα!
August 23, 2017
Πόσο διεστραμμένη μπορεί να είναι η ανθρώπινη φύση???
είναι ένα βιβλίο που σε αφήνει με ένα κόμπο στο λαιμό.. για μεγάλο διάστημα αφού το τελειώσεις...
είναι ένα βιβλίο που σε αφήνει με ένα κόμπο στο λαιμό.. για μεγάλο διάστημα αφού το τελειώσεις...
April 8, 2024
5 stars audio
4.25 disturbing and disappointing ending stars story.
4.25 disturbing and disappointing ending stars story.
May 18, 2020
✒️ Το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο είναι το 2ο της σειράς με πρωταγωνιστή τον επιθεωρητή Κάφερι για όσους δεν το γνωρίζουν, αλλά και το πρώτο που διάλεξα να διαβάσω από τα βιβλία της συγγραφέως. Κοντά έναν χρόνο τώρα, περίμενε στο ράφι με τα αδιάβαστα.
Εεε, καιρός του ήταν ν’ αλλάξει θέση! 😁
Το στόρι που διαπραγματεύεται το βιβλίο αυτό είναι ξεκάθαρα διεστραμμένο, μιας και πρόκειται για υπόθεση παιδεραστίας, με τον επιθεωρητή Κάφερι να ηγείτο αυτής. Δεν μπορώ να πω κάτι περισσότερο, παρά μόνο ότι σε μερικές σκηνές, οι περιγραφές ήταν σκληρές, ζόρικες, και περισσότερο για αναγνώστες με γερά στομάχια. Κατ’ εμέ, “Η ΣΙΩΠΗ ΤΩΝ ΔΕΝΤΡΩΝ” είναι ένα δυνατό αστυνομικό θρίλερ με καλή πλοκή, αρκετή αγωνία, με έντονη δράση, και ιδιαίτερους χαρακτήρες. Παρότι δεν μιλάμε για ένα ογκώδες βιβλίο, μια μικρή κοιλιά μου την παρουσίασε λίγο μετά τη μέση. Κατά τ’ άλλα, είναι καλογραμμένο, ιντριγκαδόρικο, ευκολοδιάβαστο, και δεν με κούρασε στο ελάχιστο κατά την ανάγνωσή του. Δεν έχω να προσθέσω κάτι άλλο…
Σας εύχομαι καλή ανάγνωση και καλή εβδομάδα. 😊📚
Εεε, καιρός του ήταν ν’ αλλάξει θέση! 😁
Το στόρι που διαπραγματεύεται το βιβλίο αυτό είναι ξεκάθαρα διεστραμμένο, μιας και πρόκειται για υπόθεση παιδεραστίας, με τον επιθεωρητή Κάφερι να ηγείτο αυτής. Δεν μπορώ να πω κάτι περισσότερο, παρά μόνο ότι σε μερικές σκηνές, οι περιγραφές ήταν σκληρές, ζόρικες, και περισσότερο για αναγνώστες με γερά στομάχια. Κατ’ εμέ, “Η ΣΙΩΠΗ ΤΩΝ ΔΕΝΤΡΩΝ” είναι ένα δυνατό αστυνομικό θρίλερ με καλή πλοκή, αρκετή αγωνία, με έντονη δράση, και ιδιαίτερους χαρακτήρες. Παρότι δεν μιλάμε για ένα ογκώδες βιβλίο, μια μικρή κοιλιά μου την παρουσίασε λίγο μετά τη μέση. Κατά τ’ άλλα, είναι καλογραμμένο, ιντριγκαδόρικο, ευκολοδιάβαστο, και δεν με κούρασε στο ελάχιστο κατά την ανάγνωσή του. Δεν έχω να προσθέσω κάτι άλλο…
Σας εύχομαι καλή ανάγνωση και καλή εβδομάδα. 😊📚
June 28, 2012
I think only about five people in this country know about Mo Hayder. That's a shame because she's one of the best crime novelists working, and her Jack Caffery novels feature one of the most compelling cop characters I've encountered. Like Birdman, her debut, The Treatment dives right into the kind of psychological horror that a lot of crime novels don't. It's not about the procedural; it's about the twisted psychology underlying the crime itself and how Caffery's own traumatic past often intersects with it. I don't want to give anything away, but this book is dark, morbidly funny, and the first thing in a long time I had genuine trouble putting down.
September 5, 2012
Tough, tense and uncompromising, but deeply unsatisfying. The main character is battling demons from his childhood which impact on the case he is investigating. What does he do? Why he turns lone wolf of course. Annoying.
He is in a somewhat destructive relationship with a woman who is also very damaged,which does nothing to make them likeable. Irritating.
A number of "near misses" make THE TREATMENT a frustration: A person with information dismissed as a crank and ignored, a lazy police officer not doing exactly as instructed and getting away with it fails to uncover an important event (sorry, but to reveal that would create a massive spoiler) and a character with information playing cat and mouse with the protagnist made me want to hit then both over the head with a heavy object.
The ultimate frustration though, is the killer.
His behavious is some of the most bizarre and disturbing you're likely to come across, yet in the end, although we learn his name he remains little more than a cardboard cutout. The author makes no attempt whatsover to explain him or his actions. And this fact alone makes THE TREATMENT one of the most unsatisfying books I've read in a long time.
He is in a somewhat destructive relationship with a woman who is also very damaged,which does nothing to make them likeable. Irritating.
A number of "near misses" make THE TREATMENT a frustration: A person with information dismissed as a crank and ignored, a lazy police officer not doing exactly as instructed and getting away with it fails to uncover an important event (sorry, but to reveal that would create a massive spoiler) and a character with information playing cat and mouse with the protagnist made me want to hit then both over the head with a heavy object.
The ultimate frustration though, is the killer.
His behavious is some of the most bizarre and disturbing you're likely to come across, yet in the end, although we learn his name he remains little more than a cardboard cutout. The author makes no attempt whatsover to explain him or his actions. And this fact alone makes THE TREATMENT one of the most unsatisfying books I've read in a long time.
January 8, 2015
A line from the book struck me: "The clanging of things falling into place is deafening." Mo Hayder makes things clang so frustratingly and deliciously slow. She speeds you up and then you stop abruptly, and you say, "Oh, no" or "Oh, Jesus" or "Oh my God" and then you read and wait for more. But all things do fall into place eventually and what a ride you've been taken on. If you love dark thrillers, you MUST read Mo Hayder.
October 15, 2017
Μέσα σε 2 βιβλία τον έχω αγαπήσει αυτόν τον επιθεωρητή και για μένα πλέον η Mo Hayder έχει γίνει μια από τις αγαπημένες μου συγγραφείς.
Ο τρόπος γραφής της μου αρέσει πολύ και ειλικρινά δεν υπήρξε ούτε ένα σημείο που να με κούρασε το βιβλίο. Το προτείνω! Διαβάζεται πολύ γρήγορα.
Αλλά και σε αυτό το βιβλίο της (όπως και στο 1ο) πρέπει να έχεις λίγο γερό στομάχι, γιατί η θεματολογία έχει να κάνει με μικρά παιδιά.
Ο τρόπος γραφής της μου αρέσει πολύ και ειλικρινά δεν υπήρξε ούτε ένα σημείο που να με κούρασε το βιβλίο. Το προτείνω! Διαβάζεται πολύ γρήγορα.
Αλλά και σε αυτό το βιβλίο της (όπως και στο 1ο) πρέπει να έχεις λίγο γερό στομάχι, γιατί η θεματολογία έχει να κάνει με μικρά παιδιά.
June 1, 2015
Actual rating: 2.5 stars.
Until now, I regarded the novels of Mo Hayder as guilty treats, like jelly beans, something you gobble up while knowing they're no good for you. Unfortunately, as with the jelly beans in the Harry Potter stories, some Mo Hayder treats taste of vomit.
Big spoiler alert: Mo Hayder introduces a character in the first chapter, a hermit-like collector of found objects, who comes upon a damaged camera in a public park. This character, and the camera he picks up off the grass, becomes one of the threads in Hayder's story. Over the course of the novel, we periodically drop in on him as he slowly figures out how to safely get the exposed film out of the camera, then teaches himself to develop the film. Hayder makes it appear that he has unknowingly found a piece of crucial evidence, one that would have allowed the police to instantly solve the gruesome murder at the heart of the story, but that he won't realize what he has until he develops the film ... which he eventually does, and then rushes out of the house with it, presumably on his way to the nearest police station.
But Hayder is leading the reader down a false trail. He's not taking the film to the police. He is in fact the criminal everyone is seeking. It was his camera in the first place. He took the photographs that are on the undeveloped film, and of course knows all along exactly what he has. Hayder springs this on the reader in the final pages.
This isn't just misdirection or sleight of hand. It's cheating. It's as crude and manipulative as ending a novel by saying it was all a dream. I feel used. And angry.
The Treatment is frustrating in many other ways. The bad guys and girls ... as in all the other Mo Hayder mysteries I've read ... are not just inhuman but satanically evil. The details of what they do to their victims are horrifically gruesome, more so in this novel than some of the others because the villains are pedophiles. She has a thing for tight spaces and bondage, and there's plenty of both here. She lets her victims suffer for far too long while the cops ... who are nearly as unsympathetic as the criminals ... bumble around, fuck up, lose the thread, take time off for fights with girlfriends and lovers, and go off on unrelated wild goose chases. If there's a dog in a Mo Hayder story, she will kill it.
The ultimate frustration, however, is at the very end, when Hayder leaves one crucial thread hanging. I've gone over my quota of spoilers already so I won't say what it is, but I predict you will be frustrated too. And maybe as angry at Mo Hayder as I am now.
This is the second of a series of detective stories featuring a cop named Jack Caffery. I've read three others, out of order. Is it important to read them in order? I obviously think not; this one ... as are the others ... contains references to earlier Jack Caffery cases, but I didn't find that distracting. The stories pretty much stand on their own.
But I don't like Jack Caffery and I think I'm through with him. He should have been fired three cases ago. As for Mo Hayder, we'll see. Maybe the next jelly bean will taste better.
Until now, I regarded the novels of Mo Hayder as guilty treats, like jelly beans, something you gobble up while knowing they're no good for you. Unfortunately, as with the jelly beans in the Harry Potter stories, some Mo Hayder treats taste of vomit.
Big spoiler alert: Mo Hayder introduces a character in the first chapter, a hermit-like collector of found objects, who comes upon a damaged camera in a public park. This character, and the camera he picks up off the grass, becomes one of the threads in Hayder's story. Over the course of the novel, we periodically drop in on him as he slowly figures out how to safely get the exposed film out of the camera, then teaches himself to develop the film. Hayder makes it appear that he has unknowingly found a piece of crucial evidence, one that would have allowed the police to instantly solve the gruesome murder at the heart of the story, but that he won't realize what he has until he develops the film ... which he eventually does, and then rushes out of the house with it, presumably on his way to the nearest police station.
But Hayder is leading the reader down a false trail. He's not taking the film to the police. He is in fact the criminal everyone is seeking. It was his camera in the first place. He took the photographs that are on the undeveloped film, and of course knows all along exactly what he has. Hayder springs this on the reader in the final pages.
This isn't just misdirection or sleight of hand. It's cheating. It's as crude and manipulative as ending a novel by saying it was all a dream. I feel used. And angry.
The Treatment is frustrating in many other ways. The bad guys and girls ... as in all the other Mo Hayder mysteries I've read ... are not just inhuman but satanically evil. The details of what they do to their victims are horrifically gruesome, more so in this novel than some of the others because the villains are pedophiles. She has a thing for tight spaces and bondage, and there's plenty of both here. She lets her victims suffer for far too long while the cops ... who are nearly as unsympathetic as the criminals ... bumble around, fuck up, lose the thread, take time off for fights with girlfriends and lovers, and go off on unrelated wild goose chases. If there's a dog in a Mo Hayder story, she will kill it.
The ultimate frustration, however, is at the very end, when Hayder leaves one crucial thread hanging. I've gone over my quota of spoilers already so I won't say what it is, but I predict you will be frustrated too. And maybe as angry at Mo Hayder as I am now.
This is the second of a series of detective stories featuring a cop named Jack Caffery. I've read three others, out of order. Is it important to read them in order? I obviously think not; this one ... as are the others ... contains references to earlier Jack Caffery cases, but I didn't find that distracting. The stories pretty much stand on their own.
But I don't like Jack Caffery and I think I'm through with him. He should have been fired three cases ago. As for Mo Hayder, we'll see. Maybe the next jelly bean will taste better.
November 24, 2016
3-3.5 stars
What kept me from giving this a higher rating were two things;
1. The fact that it took me a while to get into the story
2. The way she chose to wrap things up regarding the Ewan storyline.
I was not at all happy with the direction the Ewan storyline ended up going in. I thought it might have been an interesting twist, but the fact that she chose to end it the way she did? Nope. Not a fan. Yes, i suppose we were supposed to look at the literal ending of the book as something hopeful and positive, but i couldn't look past that one element. It was just so hard for me to read. Because when it was revealed what happened to Jack's brother...it turned out that Mo Hayder had found a way to make the reality even worse than what the readers had been imagining since the first book.
Mo Hayder is an amazing storyteller, and i love that she never shies away from writing a dark, disturbing story. But, there were a few aspects to the story that were just a little too disturbing for me. And while i respect the way she chose to have the story unfold, i wish she had made a few different decisions.
What kept me from giving this a higher rating were two things;
1. The fact that it took me a while to get into the story
2. The way she chose to wrap things up regarding the Ewan storyline.
I was not at all happy with the direction the Ewan storyline ended up going in. I thought it might have been an interesting twist, but the fact that she chose to end it the way she did? Nope. Not a fan. Yes, i suppose we were supposed to look at the literal ending of the book as something hopeful and positive, but i couldn't look past that one element. It was just so hard for me to read. Because when it was revealed what happened to Jack's brother...it turned out that Mo Hayder had found a way to make the reality even worse than what the readers had been imagining since the first book.
Mo Hayder is an amazing storyteller, and i love that she never shies away from writing a dark, disturbing story. But, there were a few aspects to the story that were just a little too disturbing for me. And while i respect the way she chose to have the story unfold, i wish she had made a few different decisions.
March 2, 2022
Crudo e impactante.
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