Damaged is an impressive debut by
Pamela Callow, an exciting story which is well-plotted and features a variety of characters. Our heroine, Kate Lange, has a new career at a high-powered law firm.
(I’ve got to say, as an Englishwoman reading this book, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to be a lawyer in the US.
No amount of money is worth that much work and lack of free time and stress; money and success aren’t that important!)
Anyway, we learn quite a bit about Kate in this book; it almost seems as if there were a previous story that we
have missed - she has an ex-fiancé who is on the police force and can’t stand her new boss at the law firm. However, the back story is all given (there
isn’t a previous book), although things aren’t entirely tied up by the end of the story
- the author has since written another novel using these characters.
Damaged is about a series of murders where women are discovered with their arms and legs missing. Kate has a peripheral link with one of the dead women and can’t get over her death and whether there is anything Kate could have done to prevent it (clearly not). Kate finds herself investigating, which brings her into conflict with her ex-fiancé - and might draw her to the notice of the killer.
There are some interesting plot points in Damaged, as well as a selection of potential baddies. I didn’t entirely warm to Kate;
she seems a bit of a loose cannon whose apparent desire for a career is jettisoned fairly easily. However, Damaged is an excellent first novel, even if it’s made me more certain that the lives American lawyers have to lead to get on in their careers are too much to ask for.