My rating:

add to my books

Ritual (Jack Caffery #3)

by Mo Hayder

3.58 · rating details · 720 ratings · 105 reviews

A signature cocktail of gore and suspense fused with elements of the occult have made Mo Hayder a rising star on the mystery circuit. Her latest, Ritual, delivers all the thrills her growing fanbase has come to expect. Just after lunch, police diver Flea Marley closes her gloved fingers around a human hand. The fact that there is no body attached is disturbing enough-until...more

Paperback, 496 pages

Published September 29th 2009 by Penguin (Non-Classics) (first published January 1st 2008)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 1,176)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Sep 21, 2010

Sarah rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: horror, adult, witchcraft, drugs, death, africa

Phoebe "Flea" Marley has been a police diver for years. She's used to recovering gruesome cadavers from beneath the water's surface. During a recent dive, Flea discovers not one, but two human hands, but she is unable to locate the body. Forensic evidence links the hands to Ian Mallows, also known as Mossy. And it looks like the hands were removed while Mossy was still alive.

Flea begins to investigate Mossy's background, and learns that he is a troubled heroin addict,...more

· see review

Sep 09, 2009

S.D. rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

I was first fascinated with Hayder’s character Jack Caffery in Birdman. Like Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor (must be something with the name Jack), Caffery is flawed by past hauntings, the kidnap and murder of his brother 30 years ago. In RITUAL he has moved to Bristol and a case involving African occult practices teams him with Flea Marley, a police diver with hauntings of her own, the death of her parents two years ago in a diving accident. Fate has brought these two together even if they don’t re...more

· see review

May 25, 2009

Bernadette rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book, read-2009

Police diver Phoebe ‘Flea’ Marley discovers a human hand in a Bristol harbour. DI Jack Caffrey, newly moved to Bristol from London, responds to Flea’s suggestion that the case deserves more than a cursory handling. A second hand is soon found and when they learn that the person to whom the hands belonged was probably alive when they were severed the investigation moves into overdrive. The search is on for a man recently released from prison after serving a sentence for a terribly violent crime w...morePolice diver Phoebe ‘Flea’ Marley discovers a human hand in a Bristol harbour. DI Jack Caffrey, newly moved to Bristol from London, responds to Flea’s suggestion that the case deserves more than a cursory handling. A second hand is soon found and when they learn that the person to whom the hands belonged was probably alive when they were severed the investigation moves into overdrive. The search is on for a man recently released from prison after serving a sentence for a terribly violent crime while at the same time the team investigate the crime’s possible links to Muti: an African belief system.

This is not your standard police procedural. It’s far more concerned with the psychological elements of crime and the things that motivate all the players. Flea and Jack both have personal demons that influence their behaviour and the kind of officers they are. Hayder provides rich back stories for them both but incorporates these into current events well enough that it never feels like a waste of time as can sometimes happen. They are complex people too, with foibles and good points in roughly equal measure, who rarely behave predictably. I think it’s a sign of excellent writing that my opinion of both these characters changed as more of their respective layers were revealed. For the most part the less important characters were created with equal deftness and even those that played only a minor role, such as Jonah’s mother who only appeared towards the very end, were totally credible. In fact the relatively few portions of the book that depict the life of the young man whose hands are severed were, for me, the most powerful and evocative of the lot.

The story too is a complex one with many concurrent themes the strongest of which is that almost all the characters have some element of their past that haunts or troubles them in their current lives. But Hayder explores other issues too including the way people deal, or don’t deal, with being transplanted from their own culture and the role that family bonds play at all layers of society. She also looks at an urban drug culture and the industry that thrives on exploiting the vulnerable within that culture. Funnily enough, the one element of the book that I struggled with was the inclusion of the more traditional crime fiction elements, like the fairly obvious false trails and red herrings, which I didn’t think were handled quite as well as the psychological elements of the book.

I’ve not read any of the Jack Caffrey books before so I don’t know how this compares to others but I was certainly captivated by this story. If you imagine Trainspotting meets McCallum you might get a sense of this world and the fact I was an hour late for work this morning is the best evidence I have that it’s an utterly gripping read.

Audio book specific comments: I think Andrew Wincott might be my new favourite narrator. Outstanding job.

(less)

like 1 like

· see review

Apr 29, 2009

Krishna rated it

· review of another edition

Mo Hayder's return to the Jack Caffery series is a mixed bag. Definitely not on par with the hyper-gory Birdman or the disturbing The Treatment, it relocates Caffery to Bristol where along with a new soon-to-be recurring series character, police diver Flea Marley, he investigates the discovery of a severed human hand in the harbour.
The key problem is, the plot which is interesting though hardly outstanding hardly needs Caffery, who could have been substituted by any Detective. Marley's ow...more

· see review

Dec 08, 2009

pinknantucket rated it

· review of another edition

This is a thriller that involves 'muti', religious practices from various African countries that involve body parts, in this case human and detached from said human while still alive. Not as terrifying as you might imagine (the book, that is); I have a fairly low horror threshold and I was OK most of the time.

I kept getting annoyed in this book because various characters kept referring to others as 'African' or to muti as 'African'. All the 'African' characters were sinister. Flea, o...more

· see review

Nov 23, 2009

Catherine rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-liked

I had high hopes for this book as it continues the character in the author's first 2 books (Birdman and The Treatment) which are some of my favorite all time reads.
This one started off well but the second half was not as compelling and it left me feeling frustrated re the lack of storyline to explain the details of the events between this book and the previous one.
As in the previous books the main character (DCI Jack Caffrey) has his own things going on which make a subplot to the cur...more

like 1 like

· see review

Jun 07, 2011

Catherine Brown (c4thb) rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: owned-swap-list

Weird and WoW! Jack Caffrey returns having left the big city for Bristol. Caffrey has moved with a few things in his life since The Treatment, and we see a darker side to him, learning more about him, his feelings and his motives. The story introduces the Walking Man, a mysterious fellow to say the least, and introduces a strong character "Flea" (Phoebe) a police diver. With similar history and family issues I felt that the pair worked well together. A good proportion of the book ...more

· see review

Aug 04, 2011

Katie Grainger rated it

· review of another edition

This is the second novel I have read by Mo Hayder, the first being Pig Island. I originally picked up Pig Island because it promised shocks and horror and I was in the mood to be scared by a novel. Pig Island however was a disappointment to me as I didn't feel it was particularly shocking or scary. Ritual however made up for the disappointment I had felt when reading Pig Island. Ritual is a two fold story, it focuses at the beginning on a hand found in Bristol Harbor but the secondary story is a...more

· see review

Jul 24, 2011

John rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: crime-thriller

I don’t remember when I started to read the Jack Caffery stories by Mo Hayder what I do remember is thinking wow! What terrific dark and frightening stories these are, I like Mo Hayder’s style of story weaving and the reality is she is not afraid to engage in topics that many people would rather not read about and yes I know I have read most of them out of series order, I’m still blaming Maureen because in one day in May of this year when I was laid up, she brought home from the library “Ritual”...more

like 1 like

· see review

May 23, 2010

Barbra rated it

· review of another edition

I just love this author's books - she has the ability to shock and surprise. She writes great thrillers that are both shocking and disturbing.

Back Cover Blurb:
Nine feet under water in Bristol Harbour, a police diver finds a human hand.
The fact that there's no body attached is disturbing, but even more disturbing is the discovery a day later of the matching hand and the shocking evidence that the victim was still alive when they were removed.
Recently arrived from Lo...more

· see review

Jan 13, 2011

Mark Nunn rated it

· review of another edition

I chanced across this in a charity shop, definitely 50p well spent. I had read "The Treatment" some time ago so was expecting this to be good and was not disappointed. It's very fast paced and incredibly hard to put down.

Jack is still struggling with his demons, a wonderfully damaged character. The darkness never far below the surface.

I was pleased to read that the next book also includes the new character Flea Marley introduced in this.

I am surprised I...more

· see review

Jan 05, 2012

Kieran Delaney rated it

· review of another edition

There isn't much to say about this book other than it's excellent. A brilliant story, brilliant writing and an engaging ensemble of characters, this is thriller writing at it's best. </p>

If you are after a tightly written harrowing read that ticks all the positives and deftly swerves past any negatives you could do worse than read this novel - I intend on going back and reading the Jack Caffrey novels before this, but I didn't feel once that I had missed out by picking up midway through th

...more

· see review

Jan 08, 2011

LCPL Lake County (IN) Public Library added it

“If you read the Devil of Nanking you know that this author pulls no punches. Set in the not-so-idyllic seaport of Bristol, England, this edgy story of death, drugs and African witchcraft tests the limits of the investigating officers — a woman police diver whose parents died in a deepwater pit: bodies never found, and the male detective whose brother was the victim of a pedophile: body never found. Both suffer from “survivor guilt” and are determined to solve the mystery presented by the disapp...more

· see review

Jan 29, 2012

Gail rated it

· review of another edition

To say I couldn't wait for this book to come out is a vast understatement. It is the third book focusing on DI Jack Caffrey, whom I fell a little in love with in Birdman and The Treatment. However, I found him quite unlikeable in this tale and was hugely disappointed with the book as a whole. I expected it to be fast paced, like its predecessors but it took me a while to get the thread of the linked stories. The book says it is 'the opening novel in the Walking Man series', but I found this quit...more

· see review

May 23, 2010

Maddy rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-reads

PROTAGONIST: Police inspector Jack Caffery and police diver Phoebe "Flea" Marley
SETTING: Bristol, UK
SERIES: 3rd to feature Caffery; may be start of a new series
RATING: 3.25

Phoebe "Flea" Marley is the head diver for a team that supports the police force in Bristol, UK. The team is often called upon to investigate the murky local waters when crimes take place. Even after much experience in dealing with dead bodies, Flea is taken aback when she di...morePROTAGONIST: Police inspector Jack Caffery and police diver Phoebe "Flea" Marley
SETTING: Bristol, UK
SERIES: 3rd to feature Caffery; may be start of a new series
RATING: 3.25

Phoebe "Flea" Marley is the head diver for a team that supports the police force in Bristol, UK. The team is often called upon to investigate the murky local waters when crimes take place. Even after much experience in dealing with dead bodies, Flea is taken aback when she discovers one severed hand. It's clear that the mutilation was inflicted on someone who may have been alive when it happened. Soon thereafter, the second hand is found under the portal of a restaurant. What is the message being left by these body parts? It is assumed that the hands' owner is dead; what the police don't know is that the mutilated drug addict is indeed alive, if not well.

Jack Caffery is the police inspector assigned to the case. He is rather an unusual individual, very self-contained and a real loner. He is dealing with demons from his past, having to do with the disappearance of his brother as a child. Ever since, he's been trying to avenge Ewan's death. Actually, he has much in common with Flea, who has also built many walls around herself. Her parents disappeared during a dangerous dive in South Africa. She continually berates herself for not joining in the dive herself, having inflicted an injury on herself so that she didn't have to join in. Her brother, Thom, didn't do the same; now he is so emotionally damaged that he is barely functional.

The story is told from three points of view: Flea's, Jack's and the owner of the hands, Mossy. It appears that the motivation for the dismemberment may be rooted in African witchcraft; there is a belief that placing hands under a door will bring a business much success. Fortunately, the witchcraft aspect of the narrative isn't a major emphasis in the book. However, Flea does experiment with a drug provided by a friend of her parents that allows her to come to some closure about what happened.

One of the characteristics of Hayder's books is that she often has very graphic descriptions. There is some of that in evidence here, most particularly when a character that provides guidance to Jack, The Walking Man, describes a murder he committed many years earlier. I had to skim those descriptions, as I found them quite gruesome. Most of the other violent events don't take place in real time; Hayder leaves more to the reader's imagination than spelling everything out. Nonetheless, the book is quite dark and some readers may find it disturbing.

There were several elements in this book that made it less than a satisfactory read for me. First of all, both Flea and Jack showed a singular inability to move on from the past and events that were long gone. I would have thought that each of them would have been able to do better at accommodating these tragedies in their lives. There were hints of an attraction between Jack and Flea; I was relieved to see that was not realized, at least in this book. I didn't buy into Jack consulting with The Walking Man, an individual who lives out in the fields and moves from place to place. I also found the situation with Mossy being in the lair of his predators to be a bit over the top; and the ultimate villain seemed broadcasted to me.

On the other hand, I did find the lead characters to be interesting in spite of their flaws; Flea, in particular, stood out for me. I wasn't turning the pages quickly, but the book was unique enough to keep me involved.

(less)

· see review

Sep 01, 2009

Author Annette Dunlea rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: my-recommendations

Ritual by Mo Hayder (Book Review)

Ritual by Mo Hayder is the first novel in her new Walking Man Series. It is a paperback published by Bantam Press and its ISBN is 0553820435. From the author who brought us The Birdman, Skin and The Treatment like the others it is a graphically scary novel not for the faint hearted. While I enjoyed it I felt it was not her best book. To be fair it is the first book in a new series and new characters and scenes are been introduced. This will be a good ...moreRitual by Mo Hayder (Book Review)

Ritual by Mo Hayder is the first novel in her new Walking Man Series. It is a paperback published by Bantam Press and its ISBN is 0553820435. From the author who brought us The Birdman, Skin and The Treatment like the others it is a graphically scary novel not for the faint hearted. While I enjoyed it I felt it was not her best book. To be fair it is the first book in a new series and new characters and scenes are been introduced. This will be a good series. A severed hand is found in Bristol waters and the other hand is found buried under a restaurant. It is believed that the person may be alive. The hands belong to Mossy, a missing drug addict. Mo introduces us to African rituals and folklore but that is not the main story it is a straight forward crime novel. For a female she writes very graphically gruesome scenes and is a major crime thriller writer I look forward to the next in this series. Here is an extract of the book: “Just after lunch on pontoon tanks, then dump a little air from her suit so she was stabilized enough to get to the bottom and take a little time to feel the object.It was pitch dark down there, like having her face in mud, no point in trying to see what she was holding. With most river and harbour diving everything had to be done by touch, so she had to be patient, allow the thing to feed its shape from her fingers up her arm, download an image in her mind. She palpated it gently, closing her eyes, counting the fingers to reassure herself it was human, then worked out which digit was which: the ring finger first, bent away from her, and from that she could figure out which way the hand was lying – palm upward. Her thoughts RITUAL raced, as she tried to picture how the body would be – on its side probably. She gave the hand an experimental tug. Instead of there being a weight behind it, it floated free of the silt, coming away easily. At the place where a wrist should be there was just raw bone and gristle”. This book was reviewed by Annette Dunlea author of Always and Forever and The Honey Trap.
(less)

· see review

Jan 07, 2012

Sarah rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone annoyingly cheerful and optimistic

Shelves: audiobooks

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

· see review

Oct 01, 2010

Bibliophile rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, fiction, mystery-and-suspense

The Ritual is the third book in Mo Hayder's "series" about Detective Jack Caffery takes place in Bristol. Jack has left London, convinced that he will no longer find out what happened to his brother Ewan, abducted many years ago by a child-molester (though the careful reader of the previous book in the series, The Treatment actually does know what happened to Ewan.)

The Ritual also introduces a new character, Phoebe "Flea" Marley, a police diver, who, like Jack, a...more

· see review

Sep 01, 2009

Spuddie rated it

· review of another edition

#3 Jack Caffrey mystery. Jack has moved from London, having left girlfriend Rebecca when she kept pestering him to have a child together, something he has vowed he will never do, seeing what he's seen and living what he's been through with his brother Ewan. So he is now in Bristol, and gets a case working with a diving crew who finds a severed hand in the river. This is nothing unusual, but when the lead diver, Phoebe "Flea" Marley, tells Jack that she believes the hand was severed whi...more

· see review

Nov 13, 2008

Dana rated it

· review of another edition

Phoebe (Flea) Marley, a police diver, finds a severed hand in the Bristol Harbour. She finds it strange that someone could see the hand through the murky water. Her persistence in finding out where the hand came from locates its mate, also severed under the door of a restaurant. Now what about the person those hands belong to.

DI Jack Caffery has moved from London and is put in charge of the case. Jack has moved to Bristol after the death of the man who had murdered his brother. His d...more

· see review

Jan 16, 2009

Kendra rated it

· review of another edition

I've really been on a Mo Hayder kick lately -- and I must be getting used to her, because this book didn't disturb me nearly as much as the other ones. Ritual is the third to feature Detective Jack Caffery, and this time Hayder has skipped ahead a few years, moved him out of London, and introduced a great new character, police diver Phoebe "Flea" Marley. The discovery of a pair of hands -- sans body -- kicks off an investigation that involves drug addicts and ancient rituals from Afr...more

like 1 like

· see review

Jan 08, 2010

Charles rated it

· review of another edition

British detective fiction, engaging and occasionally bloody/gory. Main male detective character continues to seek a resolution of lingering guilt over his brother's probable-vicitimization by a sexual predator, while the main female character is seeking her own resolution of guilt over her parent's unusual death scenario. Throw in some gritty drug culture, imported African pseudo-satanic stuff, and reverential homeless mystic and you have a read that is hard to put down.

· see review

Oct 17, 2011

Emma Johnston rated it

· review of another edition

In comparison to the other four Jack Caffery novels this one is definitely the weakest and heavily relies on the twist at the end. The twist was slightly predictable from halfway through the book. This is also the first introduction of Flea Marley which one again focus' on her past rather that her influence and understanding of the case. However her character evolves well in the next two books. Jack Caffery's character seems more of a novelty act as the focus on him relates to another new charac...more

· see review

Mar 01, 2010

Hayley rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: read-2010, not-in-my-possession-anymore, actual-book

I'm a huge fan of Mo Hayder's novels and find that even though I normally can't stand gruesome novels, I can't put her novels down. Ritual was different from her previous novels in that it wasn't as gruesome and it wasn't as creepy. I actually enjoy being scared and unsettled by Hayder's work so in some respects this novel was slightly disappointing. Having said that I'm so pleased that Hayder has decided to keep going with Jack Caffery and was happy to see him feature in this novel. I'm ...more

· see review

Dec 17, 2009

Matt rated it

· review of another edition

I'm not sure this author knows where she is taking this series. If she does, I'm not sure I like it.

It's a fun dirty read, but there are subplots that go nowhere, and opportunities for character development go unexamined. Jack Caffery now appears to be, for lack of a more gracious term, a violent bastard and inveterate poon-hound. It's getting hard to feel sorry for him.

· see review

Dec 13, 2010

Maggie Lloyd rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: crime, mystery

I have just finished reading this book in 2 days. A gruesome but fascinating read. I really like the character Jack Caffrey who was in Mo Hayder's first book and I hope she continues with this character in other forthcoming books.The plot is very complicated and keeps the reader guessing to the end as to how all these threads come together read.

· see review

Jul 08, 2010

Meredith rated it

· review of another edition

Not nearly as good as The Devil of Nanking. Plot felt contrived. Characters were somewhat interesting but I felt there were missing pieces of their back stories - is this a continuing series with these two police officers? Also, some plot lines were left dangling, no doubt to feed into a sequel. An OK read but not great. Glad it was a library book.

· see review

Jul 10, 2011

Gale Stanley rated it

· review of another edition

Pig Island was disappointing. I was thrilled to see that Ritual: A Novel brings back DI Jack Caffery in a chilling tale of occult practices and the drug underground. He and the other main character, police diver Flea Marley, each have their own set of baggage which they keep bottled up and reveal to each other in bits and pieces. On to SKIN...

like 1 like

· see review

Aug 08, 2011

Fred rated it

· review of another edition

Bon, comme tous les Mo Hayder, mais c'est le moins travaillé de ses romans. Aux habitués de ses personnages tout en demi-teintes, il y a quelque chose de plus brouillon que dans les romans précédents. L'intrigue est moins fascinante. Et l'introduction d'éléments mystiques, de magie noire n'est pas très concluante.

· see review

Jul 22, 2010

Mary Sindlinger rated it

· review of another edition

The touble with this book, was i was home with the girls and I can't "get into" a book when I am hearing mom watch this or mom look at me. I got this because I picked up a new release and it had this listed as the previous. I liked the characters and it had nice twists but not for the faint of heart, disturbing situations.

· see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 39 40 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (23)

More editions...

Genres

Thriller

24 users

Mystery > Crime

20 users

Mystery

17 users

Horror

9 users

Suspense

4 users

Adult

2 users

Mystery > Murder Mystery

2 users

Thriller > Mystery Thriller

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers Also Enjoyed

About Mo Hayder

Mo 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.

Series...more

More about Mo Hayder...

Books by Mo Hayder

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Pin It

Trivia About Ritual

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Groups That Shelved Ritual

Dark Fiction

596 members

last activity 13 hours, 4 min ago

shelf: read

title link	preview: Ritual
avg rating	preview: Ritual Goodreads rating: 3.58 (720 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6904067-ritual?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1277043225m/6904067.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6904067-ritual?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Ritual by Mo Hayder[/url]

Ritual (Jack Caffery #3)

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Readers Also Enjoyed

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website