He has become too human. There is nothing more monstrous.

Perturbing, harrowing and extremely thought provoking.

I am having one of those staring-blankly-at-the-wall moment, and I am completely at a loss for words. It's a powerful book that will subjugate your thoughts completely, and will torture you with those very same lingering, hard to ignore, disturbing thoughts.

The blurb on the back of this book could not be more accurate. This story is about what happens when a victim becomes a monster and a monster becomes a victim. It's an enthralling, thought provoking book about morality and human psyche and can be used as a case study for a psychology class to highlight how different people can have different definition for morality, and how I vs them approach can make us do inexplicable things. It literally made me question my own morality and I hated myself for feeling sympathetic for the sick pedophile.

I have heard so many people say that they would do anything for their kids. But how far are they actually willing to go when they say that? How far is too far?

It's a very well researched and thought out book. I didn't feel anything was over the top; whatever was happening in the book felt real and believable. It portrayed a close to life picture of how society would react, if this were to happen in real life.

But that’s just it, it’s not happening to somebody else, it’s happening to me!” Hamel replied with surprising anger. “That makes all the difference! I’m the victim of the dog! Me!”

Synopsis

Dr. Bruno Hamel, a surgeon, a loving father and a devoted husband turns to violence when his 7 year old daughter becomes the victim of a heinous crime. Consumed with grief and vengeance he devises a clever plan to kidnap the monster who raped and killed his daughter from the courthouse. And In the course of seven days he perform extremely despicable and disgusting form physical torture on the rapist.

But there’s no bottom to hatred, you keep sinking deeper, and I realized that as long as that man existed in my mind, I couldn’t exist.

The author sagaciously and realistically wrote the police investigation. It was extremely refreshing to see a capable and adept police department and an investigator making rational and clever decisions in a book. The author also showed us a very fascinating and very lifelike picture of society's divided reaction on the kidnapping and torture of the rapist.

My favorite scene was when the lead investigator - Herve Mercure, visited the prison to meet the murderer of his wife as two important things happened in this scene: we got to see the distinction between Mercure, who chose the right way to balance the scale of justice and Dr. Hamel, who chose violence. And the second thing, that also left a great impact on me, was Mercure realizing that his visits to the murderer of his wife were a form of torture, that by visiting he was, unintentionally, making him relive his sin again and again, and that he wasn't very different from Dr. Hamel in this regard. It took me a while to fully grasp and process this scene. For this scene only this book deserve 5 stars and all the praise in this world.

There are all sorts of monsters. Some are monsters their whole lives, some are monsters just for a brief moment, and some are monsters without even knowing it.

I think is is the most underrated book I have ever read. I urge everyone to read it.

PS: as you must have already guessed this book comes with a trigger warning for rape and violence.