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DI Bethany Smith #8
Evil is the Butcher
DI Bethany Smith has been looking into smaller crimes since the Tic Tac Toe case. While she’s eager to get her teeth into something substantial, she’s not keen for more murder.
A killer has other ideas, a man who’s been strangling people all over the country. Roland chops them up and buries them—in graves belonging to recently interred women. To him the ladies are his beloved mother, and she should be with him, not alone in the ground. Or has he got that mixed up and death is exactly what she deserved?
He’s confused, but so is Bethany, who battles to piece things together. When she realises who the killer is, there’s a problem. He has no fixed abode.
How will they find him?
Why is he living inside the back of a lorry?
And who is in there with him, dancing, smiling, and hanging from butchers’ hooks…
By their scalps?
A killer has other ideas, a man who’s been strangling people all over the country. Roland chops them up and buries them—in graves belonging to recently interred women. To him the ladies are his beloved mother, and she should be with him, not alone in the ground. Or has he got that mixed up and death is exactly what she deserved?
He’s confused, but so is Bethany, who battles to piece things together. When she realises who the killer is, there’s a problem. He has no fixed abode.
How will they find him?
Why is he living inside the back of a lorry?
And who is in there with him, dancing, smiling, and hanging from butchers’ hooks…
By their scalps?
258 pages, Paperback
Published February 26, 2020
195 people are currently reading
96 people want to read
About the author
Emmy Ellis
137 books115 followersAuthor of these series:
• DI Tracy Collier
• DI Carol Wren
• DI Bethany Smith
• DI Helena Stratton
• The Cardigan Estate
• DI Morgan Yeoman
• Detective Anna James
• DI Tracy Collier
• DI Carol Wren
• DI Bethany Smith
• DI Helena Stratton
• The Cardigan Estate
• DI Morgan Yeoman
• Detective Anna James
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 14, 2020
Another incredible read from this fabulous author. Gruesome in all the right places and the characters really grow on you. Long may this series continue. Highly recommended five stars from me.
March 18, 2020
Another brilliant book
December 22, 2023
Well that was rather deranged.
When you set out your stall as an author - going for maximum shock factor with the first book in your series - the only way to keep upping the ante in subsequent instalments, is by continuing to push at wilder, darker and more unhinged plots, in order to keep up the mounting levels of horror that you hope your readers are experiencing. This process of always attempting to outdo a previous effort isn't limited to serial killer thrillers though. A phrase that has now become a common reference when discussing popular culture - the exact moment when all pretence of even appearing to seem vaguely rooted in reality, swiftly disappears - came from a television show that couldn't be more different to the titles in this series of books. 'Happy Days' was a wholesome - if corny - sitcom set in 1950/60s America: wistful nostalgia viewed at least partially through a rose-tinted lens.
Fans of the show tuned in to see the lives of the Cunningham family, their friends, school-mates and a strangely incongruous yet loveable greaser character called "The Fonz", over a decade's worth of episodes that featured sibling mischief, first loves, and all the growing pains expected from a brother & sister and the regular appearances of other characters often added for comedic storylines. Oh and that greaser guy Fonzie too, who lived in his garage, didn't seem to do an awful lot of work on any vehicles other than his own, and despite seeming to be about 40 years old, was just sort of accepted by everyone as a totally fine guy to have your kids befriend, despite his penchant for very young ladies, many years his junior.
But it was all good fun. Many japes were had by all and that loveable 40 year old greaser would eventually become the guru to whom many of the youngsters (and sometimes the parents) would turn for sage advice. And for the majority of the time this series was on air (originally from 1974-1984, but repeatedly re-run for years afterwards) the audience bought into this set-up and the central conceit surrounding the enigmatic Arthur Fonzarelli. Until however, those great geniuses of the tv-executive variety decided that Fonzie was a far more interesting character (his being one of the most merchandised characters of the 1970s) than the clean-cut and innocent Ritchie Cunningham (who - bizarrely enough - had George Lucas of all people to thank for the success of 'Happy Days', after the initial show pilot having failed to impress in its debut, received much more interest after Lucas cast Ron Howard in 'American Graffiti ' his own piece of 1950s wistful nostalgia).
And if you know anything about this show, you'll know where I'm going with this - but you're continuing to read because you trust that this is a plausible little avenue to take you down, despite this review being for a serial-killer-thriller/police-procedural book. If I suddenly started to include my favourite offal recipes though, you might think I'd gone a bit mental. If I began to recall how the taste of 'Rocky Mountain Oysters' would beat Al Delvecchio's 'meatballs' any day, you'd be forgiven for feeling like I'd lost you at that point. Which was exactly how a lot of fans felt after an episode on series 5, where Fonzie had to perform a dare-devil stunt, jumping over a live shark while on water-skis. Although the show continued on for another 100+ episodes (and focusing heavily on the whacky escapades of "The Fonz") a lot of people felt that the show had lost much of its original charm; but it wasn't until a year after the show had finished its final episode that we first got to hear the now infamous pejorative that is used to argue that a creative work or entity has reached a point in which it has exhausted its core intent and is introducing new ideas that are discordant with, or an overexaggeration of, its original purpose. AKA:
"Jumping the shark."
And if writing a book where a serial killer murders dozens of butchers (the legitimate meat merchant type) because to him they represent his daddy who sexually molested him, locked him in meat chillers, made him lick pig/cow carcasses, murdered his mother and buried her under the flowerbeds...whilst also stealing the corpses of recently buried women, hanging them up in his articulated lorry, calling them mummy and waiting for them to truly rot and decompose before he would lick them, cut them open and climb inside THEIR carcasses (like some homage to THAT Han & Luke 'Tauntaun' scene - yes that's my second George Lucas reference in this one review; I'm a Gen X-er; it's our only frame of reference) whilst also cutting off the knackers of his male victims to eat, in order to gain manliness...If all that isn't Ellis jumping the freaking shark, then I don't know what to tell you.
I award this book three stars - mostly for having the audacity to make me read all the way to the end of it, because I had no idea just how much more batshit insane it was going to get.
May God have mercy on all our souls.
⭐⭐⭐
When you set out your stall as an author - going for maximum shock factor with the first book in your series - the only way to keep upping the ante in subsequent instalments, is by continuing to push at wilder, darker and more unhinged plots, in order to keep up the mounting levels of horror that you hope your readers are experiencing. This process of always attempting to outdo a previous effort isn't limited to serial killer thrillers though. A phrase that has now become a common reference when discussing popular culture - the exact moment when all pretence of even appearing to seem vaguely rooted in reality, swiftly disappears - came from a television show that couldn't be more different to the titles in this series of books. 'Happy Days' was a wholesome - if corny - sitcom set in 1950/60s America: wistful nostalgia viewed at least partially through a rose-tinted lens.
Fans of the show tuned in to see the lives of the Cunningham family, their friends, school-mates and a strangely incongruous yet loveable greaser character called "The Fonz", over a decade's worth of episodes that featured sibling mischief, first loves, and all the growing pains expected from a brother & sister and the regular appearances of other characters often added for comedic storylines. Oh and that greaser guy Fonzie too, who lived in his garage, didn't seem to do an awful lot of work on any vehicles other than his own, and despite seeming to be about 40 years old, was just sort of accepted by everyone as a totally fine guy to have your kids befriend, despite his penchant for very young ladies, many years his junior.
But it was all good fun. Many japes were had by all and that loveable 40 year old greaser would eventually become the guru to whom many of the youngsters (and sometimes the parents) would turn for sage advice. And for the majority of the time this series was on air (originally from 1974-1984, but repeatedly re-run for years afterwards) the audience bought into this set-up and the central conceit surrounding the enigmatic Arthur Fonzarelli. Until however, those great geniuses of the tv-executive variety decided that Fonzie was a far more interesting character (his being one of the most merchandised characters of the 1970s) than the clean-cut and innocent Ritchie Cunningham (who - bizarrely enough - had George Lucas of all people to thank for the success of 'Happy Days', after the initial show pilot having failed to impress in its debut, received much more interest after Lucas cast Ron Howard in 'American Graffiti ' his own piece of 1950s wistful nostalgia).
And if you know anything about this show, you'll know where I'm going with this - but you're continuing to read because you trust that this is a plausible little avenue to take you down, despite this review being for a serial-killer-thriller/police-procedural book. If I suddenly started to include my favourite offal recipes though, you might think I'd gone a bit mental. If I began to recall how the taste of 'Rocky Mountain Oysters' would beat Al Delvecchio's 'meatballs' any day, you'd be forgiven for feeling like I'd lost you at that point. Which was exactly how a lot of fans felt after an episode on series 5, where Fonzie had to perform a dare-devil stunt, jumping over a live shark while on water-skis. Although the show continued on for another 100+ episodes (and focusing heavily on the whacky escapades of "The Fonz") a lot of people felt that the show had lost much of its original charm; but it wasn't until a year after the show had finished its final episode that we first got to hear the now infamous pejorative that is used to argue that a creative work or entity has reached a point in which it has exhausted its core intent and is introducing new ideas that are discordant with, or an overexaggeration of, its original purpose. AKA:
"Jumping the shark."
And if writing a book where a serial killer murders dozens of butchers (the legitimate meat merchant type) because to him they represent his daddy who sexually molested him, locked him in meat chillers, made him lick pig/cow carcasses, murdered his mother and buried her under the flowerbeds...whilst also stealing the corpses of recently buried women, hanging them up in his articulated lorry, calling them mummy and waiting for them to truly rot and decompose before he would lick them, cut them open and climb inside THEIR carcasses (like some homage to THAT Han & Luke 'Tauntaun' scene - yes that's my second George Lucas reference in this one review; I'm a Gen X-er; it's our only frame of reference) whilst also cutting off the knackers of his male victims to eat, in order to gain manliness...If all that isn't Ellis jumping the freaking shark, then I don't know what to tell you.
I award this book three stars - mostly for having the audacity to make me read all the way to the end of it, because I had no idea just how much more batshit insane it was going to get.
May God have mercy on all our souls.
⭐⭐⭐
March 16, 2022
Who thinks this stuff up?
This is one of the most gross, gory s, and bizarre books I have ever read! I know that abused children have issues as they age unless they get help when young. But this? Its just bizarre! Very fast paced book, well written and the characters are even more developed! I think I see a bit of romance on the horizon, which would be well deserved, and good for the story. But, I really want to know where this stuff comes from! I don't know if I could function with these kind of ideas in my head!😂
This is one of the most gross, gory s, and bizarre books I have ever read! I know that abused children have issues as they age unless they get help when young. But this? Its just bizarre! Very fast paced book, well written and the characters are even more developed! I think I see a bit of romance on the horizon, which would be well deserved, and good for the story. But, I really want to know where this stuff comes from! I don't know if I could function with these kind of ideas in my head!😂
April 29, 2020
The plot is really intriguing, very disturbing but reels you in, resulting in a rollercoaster of emotions. The killer has major mental health problems, the reasons behind are slowly revealed throughout. It takes all of Bethany and Mikes grit and determination to solve this one leaving them emotionally, physically and mentally drained.
Brilliantly written!
Brilliantly written!
January 10, 2022
Another book with a grisly murder theme. A killer abused by his father, made to undergo terrible ordeals.
We again get to see a nicer side to Bethany and get get to witness as readers what the she goes through.
What was the abuse? What is the killers methods, read and be surprised and shocked.
We again get to see a nicer side to Bethany and get get to witness as readers what the she goes through.
What was the abuse? What is the killers methods, read and be surprised and shocked.
June 15, 2020
Ewwww, ewwww, ewwwww . Just when you think the author couldn't think up anything so deranged!!! Another cracker of a book!
August 9, 2020
Really good
Enjoyed the book interesting story line. Quite exiting, full of action and shocking at times you definitely need the light on when you read it.
Enjoyed the book interesting story line. Quite exiting, full of action and shocking at times you definitely need the light on when you read it.
January 29, 2021
Another brilliant and gruesome read from Emmy Ellis
June 1, 2021
What a belter.
Another excellent episode in this super series, gruesome and strange and very readable
Not easy to put down.Read in one day it aS so addictive.
Another excellent episode in this super series, gruesome and strange and very readable
Not easy to put down.Read in one day it aS so addictive.
December 13, 2023
Seriously creepy and some very adult themes in book.
December 18, 2023
Oh my, I’ve just finished the last three books In this series. I thoroughly enjoyed reading, but gosh they are very gory, and gruesome, especially this one!
January 4, 2024
Great Book
I really enjoy this author. Even though she identifies the suspect in the early chapters, she keeps the suspense at a very high level!
I really enjoy this author. Even though she identifies the suspect in the early chapters, she keeps the suspense at a very high level!
March 30, 2024
enjoyable series DIBethany Smith.
Everyone has a story even serial killers. Emmy Ellis has a way of making some of the evil disappear from the antagonist.
Everyone has a story even serial killers. Emmy Ellis has a way of making some of the evil disappear from the antagonist.
May 25, 2024
This was pretty good. A very sick individual and good to see Emmy getting into the "why". I did think it could have a bit more at the end though. I finished the book, wanting a bit more.
June 7, 2024
You need a strong stomach to read this one, and it certainly makes you shudder, but it's a great book with brilliant characters.
October 4, 2024
Brilliant
Brilliant series of books although this one had to be the weirdest of all. Love the strength of bethany Smith.
Brilliant series of books although this one had to be the weirdest of all. Love the strength of bethany Smith.
September 27, 2025
This was absolutely grotesque and disgusting all the way through but also fantastic!
May 3, 2021
Wow another gore fest in the di beth johnson series, i love these books, although im not squemish, some of the things that happen in the books sends shivers up my spine and go ew yeuck. Its a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.A must read
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews