Book Review: The Stepney Green Killer by E.C. Hanson
Title: The Stepney Green Killer
Author: E.C. Hanson
Release date: August 6th, 2023
Thanks to E.C. Hanson for sending me a digital copy of this!
Excluding Matt Wesolowski’s ‘Six Stories’ series of books, I’ve never been a big reader who has enjoyed the straight forward (with minimal inclusion of anything supernatural) murder mysteries. Going into this, I wasn’t completely sure what I was getting myself into, but I really enjoyed what Hanson did with his novella ‘Wicked Blood,’ so I pushed aside any of my preconceived notions and dove in.
What I liked: The story follows three characters – Benji, Dolores and The Killer – as murders begin to pop up in the small town and authorities become ever perplexed. First – why is there a killer? Second – why do they kill, take a singular piece of their body, and leave the rest for police to discover?
Benji is a high school senior, struggling with grief and depression over losing his loving mother to cancer the previous year. His father is an asshole, focused on selling houses and his son moving out as soon as he’s eighteen. Meanwhile, Dolores is a retiree, dealing with the reality that her and her husband are drifting apart and suspecting that he’s not telling her the truth about where he goes a few times a week.
All of that works together as The Killer takes a hand here, a foot there and continues to work towards their grand finale.
I really enjoyed seeing how Benji and Dolores end up connecting, Benji as he prepares his big senior project – a true crime piece on the murders – and Dolores who becomes interested in these horrific acts happening in a town that shouldn’t be dealing with murders.
When all is said and done, Hanson connects all of the stories, connects the dots (pun intended) over the ‘why’ and we get a very disturbing climax that also seems quite possible with how far down into the depths parts of this world have gone.
What I didn’t like: As mentioned, my brain always goes towards supernatural/occult etc etc, so at first, it was tough for me to switch that off and just accept this as a straightforward story where none of that will come into play.
The big reveal may come as a surprise for you or it may not. Depending on how early you pick up on the clues Hanson leaves, you’ll either race to the ending to see who The Killer really is, or meander to the ending to confirm your theory and pat yourself on the back over a job well done!
Why you should buy this: If you like topical, True Crime fiction, this one should be on your list. Hanson does a wonderful job of creating characters you’ll want to follow along and events that you’ll want to see unfold.
3.5/5
