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The Button Man by Mark Pryor
3.5★'s
Hugo Marston series book #4
From The Book:
Former FBI profiler Hugo Marston has just become head of security at the US Embassy in London. He’s asked to protect a famous movie-star couple, Dayton Harper and Ginny Ferro, who, while filming a movie in rural England, killed a local man in a hit and run. The task turns from routine to disastrous almost immediately. Before Hugo even meets them, he finds out that Ferro has disappeared, and her body has been found hanging from an oak tree in a London cemetery. Hours later a distraught Harper gives Hugo the slip, and Hugo has no idea where he’s run off to. Taking cues from a secretive young lady named Merlyn, and with a Member of Parliament along for the chase, Hugo’s search leads to a quaint English village. There, instead of finding Harper, more bodies turn up. Teaming with local detectives and then venturing dangerously out on his own, Hugo struggles to find connections between the victims. Is this the work of a serial killer—or something else entirely? Knowing he’s being tailed, the killer prepares for the final, public act of his murderous plan, and Hugo arrives just in time to play his part.
My Thoughts
This was the first book by Mark Pryor and the first in this series that I had read. The writing style flowed very well and was very easy reading. The premise of the story was also very good...a body hanging in the graveyard and plenty of suspects. The main problem I had with the story was that the lead character...a former member of the FBI and the head of the American Embassy security...would lose the man he was supposed to be protecting in the first place...and then chase him all over London and the outlying villages with the aid of people that he knew absolutely nothing about other than what they had told him. That just didn't seem believable and it bothered me throughout the entire book. I do plan on reading others in this series as I found that Hugo is a very likable character on the whole.
Anyone looking for a murder mystery to enjoy without the blood and guts will find this series fits the bill perfectly.
