Epeolatry Book Review: Bodily Harm by Deborah Sheldon
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Title: Bodily Harm
Author: Deborah Sheldon
Genre: Crime horror
Publisher: Undertaker Books
Publication date: October 11, 2024
Synopsis: Survival has a price… Is Cara ready to pay it?
From the moment she feels a gun barrel shoved into her back, Cara Haynes is thrown into the brutal world of vicious criminals and the police officers tough enough to pursue them.
Cara has lived in Melbourne just a few weeks when she survives an armed robbery at her local pizzeria. Traumatised, afraid and alone, Cara’s lifeline is Mick Thompson, a detective from the Armed Offence Squad, whose compulsion to find these violent offenders keeps him awake at night. But soon, Cara doesn’t know the difference between safety and danger…
Written by award-winning author, Deborah Sheldon, Bodily Harm is a fast-paced, savage and disturbing read where one woman’s nightmare becomes a detective’s obsession. Don’t miss out—get your copy today!
Deborah Sheldon’s Bodily Harm grabbed me by the throat on page one and never once loosened its grip. Set against the rain‑slick streets and fluorescent glare of present‑day Melbourne, the book fuses the relentless momentum of a police procedural with the raw nerve of psychological horror. The result is a bruising, white‑knuckle thriller that also happens to be one of the most compassionate examinations of trauma I’ve read in years.
Cara Haynes uproots her life to take a print‑shop job in the big city, hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she walks into an armed robbery at her neighborhood pizzeria—an ordeal that leaves one man dead and Cara’s own sense of safety in tatters. Enter Detective Senior Sergeant Mick Thompson of the Armed Offence Squad: old‑school, sharp‑witted and all too willing to blur lines in pursuit of a conviction. Their paths collide in the investigation, and a tenuous bond forms—one that soon spirals into obsession, coercion and, ultimately, outright terror.
Sheldon never sensationalizes the horrors she depicts. The violence—whether it’s the sudden, deafening brutality of a hold‑up or the slow suffocation of coercive control—always serves character and theme.
We inhabit the minds of Cara, Mick, rookie detective Alec Castellano and several secondary players. Each perspective arrives with its own rhythms and blind spots, layering suspense as the reader pieces together motives the characters can’t (or won’t) see.
I’m a horror reader first, crime fan second, and domestic‑thriller skeptic always. Bodily Harm annihilated those boundaries. Sheldon’s prose is lean but lyrical; her dialogue crackles with authenticity (Mick’s old‑school banter had me grinning even while I braced for the next body blow). Most impressive, though, is the empathy she extends to every character, even the most compromised. No one here is cartoonishly evil, yet the book never excuses cruelty. It simply shines a harsh light on the thousand small choices that can nudge ordinary people toward monstrous acts.
Bodily Harm is the rare thriller that thrills, the rare horror novel that haunts long after the last page, and an absolute must‑read for anyone who believes the scariest monsters sometimes wear a human face. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
/5
