Alaina Urquhart, an autopsy technician and co-host of the podcast Morbid: A True Crime Podcast, debuted as an author this past September with the release of her book The Butcher and the Wren. This mystery-thriller is a story about a series of murders in the bayous of Louisiana, told from the alternating perspectives of a forensic pathologist and the serial killer in question. It’s a book with an interesting premise and written by a professional in the field. The book had a lot of promise, yet it fell a little flat.
The two characters were well written with regards to their psyche and personalities, giving them a well rounded and three dimensional feel. The serial killer, Jeremy, was especially fun to read as he had a certain disdain and dryness in his worldview which tickled my darker sense of humour. He is depicted as intelligent but not too smart as to make him feel invincible. For the most part he felt cool, calm, and collected. However there were times where he was emotionally trigger-happy which, to my enjoyment, made some of his actions and decisions less predictable. For the most part he was human, and humans make great monsters.
The forensic pathologist, Wren, was also well rounded as a character, but less enjoyable to read. As Urquhart has an incredible amount of knowledge through her professions on serial killers and medical procedures, the chapters in Wren’s point of view suffered the unfortunate consequence of feeling pulled from a textbook. Her chapters were very informative, with technicalities that felt more and more like the sci-fi jargon spoken by Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation. For myself, I found it jarring; after all there’s only so many times I can read “lividity” and “cypress tree” before wanting to throw a thesaurus at something.
The book itself was an easy read as it is a short book with short chapters, and could easily be enjoyed in small bites over time or binged in an afternoon. Some of the descriptions became quite repetitive over time; a shortcoming that can be forgivable for a debut author, but something to consider if that’s a personal pet-peeve of yours. The overall plot was nicely paced with a long action scene in the middle to keep you entertained and engaged during the section of the book where many novels fall flat. The main twist was familiar and predictable for those who read a lot in this genre but still quite pleasant. As a first novel, Urquhart should be proud as this book can be easily enjoyed by many who appreciate true crime. It will be interesting to see where she goes from here.
