ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – Profile K by Helen Fields

Profile K by Helen Fields was published by Avon on 25th April 2024 and is available in hardcover, eBook and audiobook. My thanks to Becky Hunter and the publishers for the proof copy.

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…

The million-copy bestseller is back with a dark, terrifying journey into the mind of a psychopath that will keep you riveted until the very last page.

Profile K has an instantly intriguing premise. Midnight Jones is a profiler for a company called Necto and one day she comes across the file of a person who is capable of the worst possible crimes. She has no idea who the person is, but the minute she made the decision to delve deeper into the depravity of their mind she became a target, and the only thing that will save her is if she finds them before they find her. So begins a cat and mouse game as Midnight plunges headfirst into the murky depths of a damaged and deranged psyche.

Helen Fields is one of my favourite thriller writers and I always look forward to picking up her books. Profile K, like the books that went before it, is gripping, gruesome and tightly plotted. At times, the work that Necto does felt a bit futuristic to me, but I came to realise that it’s a lot more plausible than I could ever have imagined. It’s a really original storyline, all the more chilling for the fact that any information in the wrong hands can be deadly.

This is a fast-paced book overall but the last third or so just galloped along at a heart-stopping pace and it’s a wonder I didn’t get whiplash because I was turning the pages so quickly. Fields really knows how to write (a) a terrifying baddie and (b) a truly compelling thriller.

There’s a brilliant cameo from Dr Connie Woolwine, who has appeared in a couple of other Fields books. I was left wondering if we might see Midnight again in future books with her profiling skills and resourceful nature. I do hope so.

Profile K is a clever and exhilarating read from a consistently brilliant thriller writer.

A Sunday Times and million copy best-selling author, Helen is a former criminal and family law barrister. Every book in the Callanach series has claimed an Amazon #1 bestseller flag. ‘Perfect Kill’ was longlisted for the Crime Writers Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger in 2020, and others have been longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, Scottish crime novel of the year. Helen also writes as HS Chandler, and has released legal thriller ‘Degrees of Guilt’. In 2020 Perfect Remains was shortlisted for the Bronze Bat, Dutch debut crime novel of the year. In 2022, Helen was nominated for Best Crime Novel and Best Author in the Netherlands. Now translated into more than 20 languages, and also selling in the USA, Canada & Australasia, Helen’s books have won global recognition. She has written standalone novels, The Institution, The Last Girl To Die, These Lost & Broken Things and The Shadow Man. She regularly commutes between West Sussex, USA and Scotland. Helen can be found on X @Helen_Fields