Difficile de construire une bonne sérié avec un (des) tueurs en série et un ex flic violent (plus de geek de service). Et pourtant ça fonctionne bien. ( )

This is clearly not a book by an American author, why you ask? Well for a start the writing was incredible, the story kept getter better and better as more of the retired detectives past leaked out while at the same time the main story remained interesting and suspense filled. This is not a thriller/ murder mystery for people with a weak stomach. The Train Rider is a nasty vile serial killer. The story is so expertly told, rather than the usual formula following books that usually fill this genre, I just wish the authors books were easier to obtain here in the United States, I had to get this one from Book Depository, a site tied with Amazon for obtaining great books not available in the United States. ( )

This is clearly not a book by an American author, why you ask? Well for a start the writing was incredible, the story kept getter better and better as more of the retired detectives past leaked out while at the same time the main story remained interesting and suspense filled. This is not a thriller/ murder mystery for people with a weak stomach. The Train Rider is a nasty vile serial killer. The story is so expertly told, rather than the usual formula following books that usually fill this genre, I just wish the authors books were easier to obtain here in the United States, I had to get this one from Book Depository, a site tied with Amazon for obtaining great books not available in the United States. ( )

THE TRAIN RIDER is book three featuring Darian Richards - ex-cop, now vigilante walking a very fine line between right and wrong. He's also a violent, psychotic killer magnet.

In this case, THE TRAIN RIDER is the name of the book and the serial rapist and killer who Richards never caught. After a period of no activity, Richards is convinced that the killer is back, in Queensland as well, and playing games with him. Certainly as the violence ramps up, our killer declares himself clearly - its up to Richards alone to save the day.

Richards is a classic anti-hero. Prepared to kill if justice cannot prevail in any other way, he's very much a loner. With a best friend, a computer genius cohort, a love interest and a reluctant colleague he stomps his way through this case intent on getting this killer. Veering dangerously close to actually building a relationship with Rose (who made an appearance in the earlier books), he manages to drive her away again - this time not by using her as bait, but being around him means you get involved in things that most people don't need to know about. This time he manages to keep his best friend out of the mess, but his colleagues aren't so lucky. Albeit slightly less battered and bruised this time out.

If you haven't read the earlier books, THE TRAIN RIDER does spend a lot of time going back over past events, as well as the current thoughts of Richards on just about everything. Perhaps a little too much at times for those that did read the earlier instalments. That emphasis on the "justification / explanation / whys and wherefores" of what's going on in Richards mind was frequently heavy lifting.

This is also fiction that relies on the mad, bad, extremely violent psychopathic killer. You know the type - the ones that want to "talk" to the reader, that want everyone to know the minute details of what they do to their victims. Which given the inevitability of young woman victims, all got very tedious quite a few years ago. TRAIN RIDER makes no attempt whatsoever to explain the why's and spends a bit too much time concentrating on the what in rather gory detail. It's all become less "shocking" and more "staged" unfortunately.

Since the first book I've always maintained that Richards is a fantastic character. His flawed logic and justifications, his whatever it takes attitude, make him the sort of bloke that you'd like on your side, but perhaps not at your dinner table. In THE TRAIN RIDER he's still that bloke, but he's doing a lot to carry the day.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-train-rider-tony-cavanaugh ( )

In preparation for the release of The Train Rider, I finally had the excuse I needed to read Promise and Dead Girl Sing. I devoured both crime thrillers in a single day and eagerly began the third installment from Tony Cavanaugh featuring ex homicide detective Darian Richards.

Darian Richards was once Melbourne’s top homicide cop but he walked away at the pinnacle of his career, retiring to the Queensland coast. It wasn’t the bullet to the head that broke him, but his inability to capture the man dubbed The Train Rider.

The first eight cases attributed the monster involved teenage girls abducted just after alighting a train, found days, sometimes weeks, later wandering the streets, dressed in the tattered clothes of the victim before them. They had been raped and tortured, but they were alive. But the ninth victim was never found, neither was the tenth, or the eleventh, or the twelfth…

In Promise and Dead Girl Sing, Darian reluctantly chose to come out of retirement, on his own terms, in order to stop a serial killer and a human trafficker respectively. In The Train Rider, young girls begin disappearing from the rail system. Richard’s nemesis is in town and he wants to resume the cat and mouse game the pair began in Melbourne.

Darian is a paragon of machismo – brave, strong, smart and desirable with just enough pathos to invoke admiring, rather than pitying, sympathy. He is the man you would want on the case if your daughter went missing, cruising around town in his bright red 1964 Studebaker Champion Coupe with his rare Beretta 92 tucked into his belt, ably assisted by computer genius Isosceles. I probably shouldn’t find him as appealing as I do, as in essence he is a vigilante, and yet I couldn’t help but like him.

Cavanaugh presents a cynical view of policing where ego and politics makes a mockery of service. Corruption is rife, misogyny is rampant and law and justice rarely coincide. I know I should condemn Darian’s penchant for operating well outside the law but frankly, sometimes the end justifies the means.

This series is characterised by chilling villains who prey on teenage girls. As a mother of two beautiful daughters I sometimes found it difficult to read the explicit torture visited on the victims. The ease with which the Train Rider is able to operate and elude police is terrifying and his end game is horrifying. I desperately wanted him, and those that enabled him, erased.

One flaw with the series is the depiction of the female characters, uniformly beautiful, bright and sensual. Rose, Darian’s regular ‘escort’ turned girlfriend, is at least a decade younger than him, and looks even younger, ‘Glamourcop’ Maria uses her cleavage to dazzle Isosceles and the victims are all lithe and lissom young girls. In The Train Rider even the aged wife/lover/partner complicit in the killer’s crimes is named Eve and insists she was once ‘hot’.

By The Train Rider I was finding Maria a somewhat irritating character. Not only because of the repeated references to her looks but also because of her self righteousness. I do understand her moral and ethical struggle between Richard’s particular brand of justice and her policing ideals, I just found I didn’t much care after a while. The potential is there though to develop Maria into a strong and interesting character and I hope the author does.

The Train Rider is a gritty, dark and engrossing thriller. I had thought perhaps that this may have been the conclusion to Cavanaugh’s series but it seems likely, given the ending, that we can expect more from books featuring Darian Richards. I hope so. ( )