Book Review: Eeny Meeny

Eeny Meeny is the first book in a thriller series by British author M.J. Ardlidge. He has worked in television for the last fifteen years, specializing in high end drama production. Arlidge has produced a number of prime-time crime serials for ITV In the last five years, and is currently working on a major adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans for the BBC. This is the first in his series starring Detective Helen Grace.

The synopsis of the book from the dust-jacket intrigued me enough to request it from NetGalley.


Two people are abducted, imprisoned, and left with a gun. As hunger and thirst set in, only one walks away alive. It’s a game more twisted than any Detective Inspector Helen Grace has ever seen. If she hadn’t spoken with the shattered survivors herself, she almost wouldn’t believe them. Helen is familiar with the dark sides of human nature, including her own, but this case—with its seemingly random victims—has her baffled. But as more people go missing, nothing will be more terrifying than when it all starts making sense....

While I found it to be an interesting concept on paper, I quickly realized that I did not care about any of the victims. We only see them at their most worse, where they are to the point of contemplating the act of taking the life of someone they know to save themselves. We only learned more about them after the fact, when Helen Grace is investigating the gruesome situations.

Even worse is the fact that Grace herself is severely flawed. She was not a heroine I could relate to or get behind to root for. When it is finally revealed who is behind these killings and why, I was completely over it all. I just pushed through it to be done; I never like to put a book down unfinished after I've committed a number of hours to it.

I guess I was not the right audience for this book, so I really cannot recommend it.

I might give the author another chance at some point, but not with this particular series.