The Slaughter Man

Det. Constable Max Wolfe investigates the slaughter of all but one member of the Wood family, at their mansion within a gated community, in Parsons’s exciting but uneven second contemporary crime novel featuring the London police officer (after 2014’s The Murder Man). Someone uses a cattle gun to kill American Brad Wood, a sports agent; his British wife, Mary, a former Olympic skier; and their two teenage children, Marlon and Piper. Four-year-old Bradley Wood, the lone survivor, is kidnapped. In 1980, 17-year-old Peter Nawkins (aka the Slaughter Man) fatally shot four men on an Essex farm with a cattle gun. Could there be a connection? Mary’s sister and brother pressure the police to find Bradley. In looking into both the Nawkins and the Wood families, Wolfe uncovers a world of abuse, betrayal, and unimaginable violence. An appealingly sensitive single parent, Wolfe makes some unlikely elementary mistakes with grave personal consequences, but adrenaline-driven action scenes and winning characters more than compensate. [em]Agent: Sloan Harris, ICM. (Sept.) [/em]