Book Review: "The Butcher" by Jennifer Hillier

I've never read a book by Jennifer Hillier before and well, I got this one on my phone because it was cheaper. I want to read more creepy and scary novels because obviously, Halloween is coming up. The Butcher is a book that fits that scary vibe but alongside that it also has a comment on power dynamics in which we can see the modern world through the lens of something that is horrifically wrong. There are so many possibilities in this book and though it keeps you on the edge of your seat, it also gives you a lot to think about.

The book begins in Seattle in the 1980s, with Chief of Police Edward Shank becoming a local legend after he guns down Rufus Wedge, a serial killer nicknamed “The Butcher.” Automatically, we are thrown into the possibility of a cat-and-mouse game, but it isn't quite what the book has in mind for us. Wedge is said to have been behind a string of gruesome murders of women, and Shank’s decisive action cements his reputation as a hero. The entire city loves him, but from our viewpoint, we know there has to be a darker secret hiding beneath the surface. This is meant to be a tense and frightening book and it simply cannot end like this. The author drives us on with pure curiosity.

The narrative then shifts to decades later, when Edward Shank is in his eighties, living in retirement in his family home. His grandson, Matt Shank, is a rising celebrity chef with a popular restaurant and TV appearances. Their close but complicated family dynamic sets the stage for secrets from Edward’s past to come bubbling up. Edward decides to move into a retirement home, leaving Matt with his house. At first, Matt sees the inheritance as both a burden and an opportunity as it’s an old property filled with memories, but it could also serve as inspiration for his career. However, as Matt settles in, he begins to uncover strange and unsettling traces of his grandfather’s past. I'm not going to lie, the further we dug into the past as readers, the more questions we begin to ask about whether Edward Shank is the hero everyone makes him out to be. The author purposefully shows and hides things throughout this part of the text, proving that they have no intention of revealing everything just yet.

A grisly discovery is made on the Shank property when construction work turns up human remains. These bones suggest that not all of The Butcher’s victims were accounted for, raising disturbing questions about whether Rufus Wedge had been wrongly credited with every crime. The past begins to look less clear-cut, with Edward’s role in the investigation and killing of Wedge becoming increasingly suspicious. What we have here now is the fact that the hero of the story might or might not be a part of the same crime they were trying to investigate. There is another possibility on top of this: was Edward Shank part of a separate crime? The final possibility is that Shank was the Butcher himself. But as we move through the book, each of these possibilities get uncovered as part of a brand new investigation. The author intentionally sometimes misdirects us into believing something and then, changes up the tone. There's a deep, creeping feeling in the pit of your stomach, something you don't want to believe, that keeps coming up over and over again until you have that moment of realisation that hits later on int he text.

The atmosphere is constantly tense, the story is twisted and weird, the writing is absolutely brilliant. The author does a fantastic job at keeping the reader on the edge of their seat. I was absolutely astounded by this book and how tense it really was. All in all, this is pretty much a perfect read for Halloween. It isn't this gory bloodshed horror, it slow-burns with an intense flame, it revisits the past and it digs up things that some of the characters would prefer to stay buried. One of the big themes in this book I found was idolisation. What happens when the people we idolise turn out to be not who we thought they were?