The Surrogate by Tania Craver Book Review

 The Surrogate 

(Brennan and Esposito #1)

By Tania Craver 

Published Year: 2009

Page Count: 438 pages

Medium Used: Oneplus Nord Ce6, Moon Reader 

Genre: Horror, LGBTq, Thriller, Crime,  Mystery, Detective, Surrogacy, Blood and Gore, 2026-read. 

Rating : 4/5 😎 😎 😎 😎 

This is not as bad as I had expected it be. I learnt the basic story of the book before jumping in. I fully prepared myself to face some seriously deranged characters, some nauseating scenes but somehow I felt the author didn't let herself go fully in. She refrained herself from making horrible things happen to those babies. I am thankful to her for that. Some scoundrel wants to gift his wife babies because she cannot make them herself and goes about doing it by carving those babies out of pregnant women's wombs. The silly reason given is that this makes the bonding between the baby and its pretend mother complete. The woman into whose hands these children were driven was hateful, obnoxious, tempermental and highly volatile. I couldn't help feel pity for those souls who might (if reality) have to live under such a parent! 

I felt the writing was gorgeous and gripping. This is a fast paced narrative with some romance and drama added to make it more spicy. I liked how the two main characters have an almost equal contribution to the unraveling plot. While one is the brains the other is the action hero. I found the psychological insights thrown into the suspects' mentality interesting. The abuse  the perp suffered at the hands of his father made him into the monster he was. As psychologists claim, roots to all mentally induced evils have their origins in childhood and in this case it is true. I am wavering between feeling pity for the perp(really a hapless victim) and banishing him forever into the pits of no forgiveness and eternal misery! 

I loved the part where the cops are made to believe in one version of reality(that the perp is both male and female)  while the other is true. It kept me on my toes. I thought it would get confusing but thankfully it didn't. 

There was one scene involving male self mutilation that just made my heart skip a beat. It just shocked me beyond description. I read and reread the statement to see if I was mistaken. But no! This story is definitely not for the weak hearted! It has unhinged me a bit. 

I felt the character development could have been better. I was surprised to see how some characters who had been devoid of all emotion became suddenly scared or vulnerable. It felt unbecoming of them. It felt like they were responding in a way to move the story forward rather than acting according to their natures. In the beginning of the narration, Esposito was hired to play the psychologist in the team (lead by Brennan) by the boss, Fenwick. He highly recommends her assistance and values the insights she would provide. Then why is it that he belittles her opinions regarding their suspect right after her inclusion in the team? They have atleast two incidents of face off and it didn't sit well with me. Something felt extremely out of sync here. 

So giving away the story a bit. There are multiple, parallel tracks running in this story. There is the major track where a serial killer is murdering pregnant women and stealing away their near term babies. There is a track with the latest victim's ex boyfriend where he becomes the prime suspect and his current girl friend Sophie appears in connection with all the victims. There is a track with the police officer Clayton where he gets sexually involved with Sophie. There is this important track of developing bond between the two main characters - Brennan and Esposito. This is one goddamn, well written book. They were together before but became estranged after a misunderstanding. The author has clearly done a thorough job, pulling all these strings together, but my only doubt is can a man survive such self mutilation as the perp suffers? Is it fantasy or real crime fiction here?!! 

Read it for sure, all ye thriller lovers!