His Favourite Graves by Paul Cleave

His Favourite Graves by Paul Cleave.

Published 9th November 2023 by Orenda Books.

From the cover of the book:

To catch a killer…

Maybe you’ve got to be one…

Acacia Pines, USA. Sheriff Cohen’s life is falling apart – his father accidentally burned down the retirement home, his wife has moved out, and his son is bullying other kids at school.

When high-school student, Lucas Connor, is abducted, Cohen sees a chance to get his life back on track – to win back his wife and scoop the reward money offered for Lucas’s safe return.

But as the body count rises, it becomes clear that Cohen’s going to have to make the kind of decision from which there’s no coming back … a decision with deadly consequences…

A furiously paced, edge-of-your-seat thriller exposing the dark underbelly of small-town life, His Favourite Graves is also a twisted and twisty story of father-and-son relationships, and the one last gamble of a desperate man to save everything…

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Acacia Pines, USA. Sheriff Cohen's life is in freefall. His wife has left him, he suspects his son has become the very worst kind of high school bully, and his father's dementia is more than he can cope with. Things only get worse when Cohen is hit with a string of legal bills he cannot afford, after his father tried to burn down the old people's home where he was living, He desperately needs a way to revive his family's fortunes.

When Lucas Connor, one of his son's classmates, is abducted, Cohen begins to see light at the end of the depressing tunnel that has become his life. The reward money on offer is just the thing he needs to get back on track, if only he can find the boy and return him safely to his father... but little does he know that this path will set him spiralling further down into darkness...

Sheriff Cohen is caught between a rock and a hard place at the beginning of this story, and Paul Cleave uses his predicament to sow the seeds of a gripping thriller that is rife with intriguing themes. The fear of spoilers precludes me from waxing lyrical about how beautifully plotted this book is, so by necessity this will be a short, sharp kind of review. However, this is a must read if you love the notion of Stephen King-esque evil lurking within neat suburban homes, and the kind of twists and turns that you really do not see coming until they hit you square between the eyes. 

The story unfurls from the points of view of Cohen, Lucas, and a depraved villain of the piece, and Cleave weaves their plotlines together to disturbing effect. The pace is fast and furious from the word go, and the tension rises to fever pitch as Cohen's decision to stray from the path of righteousness stirs up layers of malevolent, American small town murk. The consequences of bad decisions, trauma, abuse, and psychological disturbance comeback to haunt those involved in an orgy of gritty scenes packed with violence, and as danger comes creeping across Cohen's own threshold you find yourself unable to look away for a second.

Along the way, Cleave builds emotional power into the breath-taking action by delving into father-son relationships, and I promise that much of the rawness he exposes will set you thinking about what sets people on a destructive path, and how monsters are made...

This is one of the best written, and most harrowing, thrillers I have read all year. I consumed it in one delicious bite, and needed a lie down in a dimly-lit room when I was done. I tip my hat at Paul Cleave for the clever title too! I cannot believe that this is the first Cleave book I have read, because it is, quite simply, outstanding. I already have his previous novel from Orenda Books, The Pain Tourist, lined up to absorb next - I cannot wait!

His Favourite Graves is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats. You can support the very best of indie publishing by buying direct from Orenda Books HERE.

Thank you to Orenda Books for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Paul is an award winning author who often divides his time between his home city of Christchurch, New Zealand, where most of his novels are set, and Europe. He’s won the New Zealand Ngaio Marsh Award three times, the Saint-Maur book festival’s crime novel of the year award in France, and has been shortlisted for the Edgar and the Barry in the US and the Ned Kelly in Australia. HIs books have been translated into over twenty languages. He’s thrown his Frisbee in over forty countries, plays tennis badly, golf even worse, and has two cats – which is often two too many. The critically acclaimed The Quiet People was published in 2021, and was followed in 2022 by The Pain Tourist - a number one bestseller in three countries.