‘The Bad Seeds’ by C J Skuse

Published by Harpercollins,
24 October 2024.
ISBN: 978-0-00821667-2 (PB)

This is the latest in the Sweetpea series.  This is not for the fainthearted as the main character is a serial killer. 

Rhiannon Lewis aka Sweetpea is a relatable young woman who sees her destiny as ridding the world of predatory men.  This is a darkly comic novel and involves the main character fleeing the United States and her injured husband to come to the UK on behalf of her estranged daughter thought to be desperately ill.  The authorities are after her and she is constantly afraid of being caught. 

She is joined in her escape adventures by an ex-Policewoman Nnedi who is theoretically her enemy but turns out to be a co-conspirator.  The plot is too intricate to properly explain but sufficient to say it is both dark and sexy and sometimes outrageous. 

The Bad Seeds are a group of followers who support Sweetpea and encourage her activities and sometimes attempt to emulate them.  I can do no more than quote praise from John Marrs who says 'Makes Hannibal Lecter look like Mary Poppins. 

 Dark, depraved and devilishly delicious. A good read!
------
Reviewer: Toni Russell

C.J. Skuse was born in 1980 in Weston-Super-Mare, England and has first class degrees in creative writing and writing for children and, aside from writing novels, lectures in writing for young people at Bath spa university.  She is the author of the young adult novels Pretty Bad Things, Rockoholic and Dead Romantic (Chicken House) and Monster and the Deviants (Mira Ink). She has recently written the adult crime novels Sweetpea and its sequel for HQ/HarpeCcollins.

www.twitter.com/CJSkuse.  

Toni Russell is a retired teacher who has lived in London all her life and loves the city.  She says, ‘I enjoy museums, galleries and the theatre but probably my favourite pastime is reading.  I found myself reading detective fiction almost for the first time during lockdown and have particularly enjoyed old fashioned detective fiction rather than the nordic noir variety.  I am a member of a book club at the local library and have previously attended literature classes at our local Adult Education Centre.