Review: Survivor by K R Griffiths

This novel take on the serial killer plot didn’t quite hit the spot

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THIS is an interesting take on the serial killer story – told from the point of view of the killer. This gives us the opportunity to see how a person comes to be a serial killer.

We first meet Clive Barrett at work. Barrett is the perfect employee for his City bosses: quiet, successful, unassuming, he keeps to himself and doesn’t cause trouble. If anything the only problem is that he doesn’t join in enough, and in fact in these opening passages he is making his excuses and leaving his colleagues to their Friday night drinks. Barrett has other plans for his evening.

Barrett wants to be the most notorious serial killer the UK has ever seen. But there’s set to be a spanner in the works; one of his previous kills didn’t stay dead, and she wants revenge. Thus begins a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Barrett is a fledgling killer; he makes mistakes – the biggest of these leaving his new adversary alive. He tries to learn from these slip-ups. He has big plans. This is a completely different approach to the serial killer plot as I know it. The Dexter series of books is the only other story I know of that takes the serial killer as the main character. I haven’t read these but as far as I’m aware Dexter is already established as a very competent and deadly killer.

There is an awful lot of violence against women in the book. But it’s well handled. It can be easy for such stories to descend into misogynistic torture porn but Griffiths manages to avoid this.

So why only two stars? I don’t think we get enough into Barrett’s head – we don’t really understand why he’s a serial killer (unlike with, say, Dexter). Also the man is clearly a psychopath and it’s hard to have any kind of emotional connection to a character who himself is lacking emotions, even if it's just to dislike him. This is also my issue with Dexter and why I haven’t read it.

My main problem, though, is the ending. I found it deeply unsatisfying and unconvincing. I feel that Griffiths has sacrificed a realistic ending for the sake of a twist. And unfortunately I didn’t think the twist was that good. I won’t say what it is – you’ll just have to decide if you want to read the book!

For sake of clarity, I’m not comparing this book to the Dexter series, just using the latter as a reference.

I received this book as part of the GoodReads FirstReads scheme.