Review: Hades by Candice Fox

A dark, compelling and original thriller that will have you spellbound from its atmospheric opening pages to its shocking climax. Hades is the debut of a stunning new talent in crime fiction.

Hades Archer, the man they call the Lord of the Underworld, surrounds himself with the things others leave behind. Their trash becomes the twisted sculptures that line his junkyard. The bodies they want disposed of become his problem for a fee. Then one night a man arrives on his doorstep, clutching a small bundle that he wants 'lost'. And Hades makes a decision that will change everything...
Twenty years later, homicide detective Frank Bennett feels like the luckiest man on the force when he meets his new partner, the dark and beautiful Eden Archer. But there's something strange about Eden and her brother, Eric. Something he can't quite put his finger on. When the two detectives are called to the scene of an attempted drowning, they find a traumatised victim telling a story that's hard to believe - until the divers start bringing up bodies.

Frank is now on the hunt for a very different kind of serial killer: one who offers the sick and dying hope at murderous cost. At first, his partner's sharp instincts come in handy. Soon, he's wondering if she's as dangerous as the man they hunt.

I received this book via NetGalley to give an honest review.

This book wasn't really what I was expecting. I read the blurb and I was thinking something dark, gritty but honestly it was far from that for me. Yes there are people being murdered but I just didn't feel it, liked I hoped. 

You have this man named Hades who pretty much gets rid of bodies for people or cleans up their mess. That is until one night two children are brought to his doorstep and instead of killing them he pretty much raises them as his own.

Years later the two become police detectives pretty cool considering what Hades does. Then enters in Frank, he can tell something is off with both Eric and Eden but he doesn't know what. 

Eden and Frank get a call and what they uncover is something right out of Dexter seriously that is what I first thought of. Bodies were brought up from the ocean but who are they and why are they there? 

They go on this hunt for a serial killer who is killing for body parts but will they find him before it is too late? Will Eric and Eden's past come to haunt them? Will Frank let go of his suspensions of the brother and sister? 

Now the author did the whole different P.O.V.'s and while this would be good I felt that sometimes it jumped to a different P.O.V. at the wrong times. Which left me confused and re-reading to make sure I didn't miss something. I think maybe if she would have made it known we were going into Frank's or Jason's or someone else's then that would have been okay because we as readers would have known instead of scratching our heads going umm okay now who is this we are reading about now.

Even though I enjoyed this book especially since it is a new author I felt the characters lacked in their development. I guess maybe that was the point considering their background they needed to be detached from everyone. The plot was good, the ending was predictable in a way. I see there is a second book coming soon so I wonder what that will be about.

Candice Fox is the middle child of a large, eccentric family from Sydney's western suburbs composed of half-, adopted and pseudo siblings. The daughter of a parole officer and an enthusiastic foster-carer, Candice spent her childhood listening around corners to tales of violence, madness and evil as her father relayed his work stories to her mother and older brothers.
As a cynical and trouble-making teenager, her crime and gothic fiction writing was an escape from the calamity of her home life. She was constantly in trouble for reading Anne Rice in church and scaring her friends with tales from Australia's wealth of true crime writers.
Bankstown born and bred, she failed to conform to military life in a brief stint as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy at age eighteen. At twenty, she turned her hand to academia, and taught high school through two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees. Candice lectures in writing at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, while undertaking a PhD in literary censorship and terrorism.
Hades is her first novel, and she is currently working on its sequel.