PROFILE K
HELEN FIELDS
*****
He’s going to kill you. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Midnight Jones is an analyst trained to understand the human mind. But everything changes when, in the course of her work, she discovers Profile K’s file – because K stands for killer, and she knows that someone more dangerous than she could have ever imagined walks among them.
Midnight knows what Profile K is capable of before he even commits his first crime. But as the news rolls with the brutal murder of a local woman, no one believes what she tells them: that he is capable of so much worse.
Profile K will kill again – and, terrifyingly, Midnight realises that the moment she found his file was the moment she became his next target. Because Profile K is coming for Midnight – and the only way to escape with her life is to find him before he finds her…
MY REVIEW
*****
I have read a lot of Helen Field’s books, and she is usually a 5-star author for me! As far as Crime Thrillers go, she is an assured writer with interesting and flawed main characters and really dark villains. I was excited to read her latest standalone – Profile K.
Midnight works for a large tech company and analyses high-tech test results for job postings and university courses to profile applicants. But when she comes across a Profile K – the mythical Killer profile, questions need to be asked about what crimes they have already committed and how much this applicant may know about her…
Profile K is another strong thriller from Fields, although be warned that there are some genuinely hard to read chapters from the killer’s point of view. Midnight is a complex main character – looking after her twin sister with severe special needs and needing to toe the line at her job at Necto to be paid enough to help both of them survive. This means she does make some silly decisions at times, but they are completely understandable in the context of her motivations. There are also chapters from ‘The Applicant’ point of view which drip-feed the reader key information and backstory on their character.
The Necto side of the story is quite sci-fi in nature, and it felt a little too much like a stereotypical ‘evil corporation’ in some ways. I found the idea of a shake-up of jobs with everyone being assigned a different department and team a little too convenient as well - it seemed unrealistic and just used for ‘plot’ purposes.
Profile K can be read as a standalone – there is a brief guest appearance from Connie Woolwine which was a nice surprise, but this will have no impact on readers who have not read The Shadow Man or The Institution (although if you enjoyed Profile K, I heavily recommend those as next reads!).
Overall Profile K is a dark and twisty thriller – another gripping read from Helen Fields. Thank you to NetGalley & Avon Books UK for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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