The Fourth Monkey — J.D. Barker

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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 4/5

Imagine spending five years hunting a serial killer only for him to suddenly turn up dead.

Great. Case closed.

Except obviously not, because we still have several hundred pages left and apparently this man planned ahead.

The Fourth Monkey follows Detective Sam Porter, lead investigator on the 4MK task force, after the man believed to be the Four Monkey Killer is found dead. The problem? Evidence suggests he was on his way to deliver another one of his signature messages—which means there may still be a victim out there waiting to be found.

And then Porter finds the diary.

Because apparently catching a serial killer wasn’t enough. We also needed story time with a psychopath.

The book moves between Porter’s investigation and the diary, slowly showing us just how spectacularly messed up this entire situation really is.

And when I say dark, I mean DARK.

Not suburban-wife-has-a-secret dark.

More like: maybe don’t read this while eating lunch dark.

What worked for me was that there’s actually a puzzle underneath all the brutality. Porter isn’t just chasing someone through Chicago waiting for another body to appear—he’s trying to understand the clues, reconstruct what happened, and find the missing girl before time runs out.

Meanwhile, I’m reading the diary thinking:

Oh.

OH.

Well that explains absolutely nothing good.

The diary sections were probably the most disturbing part for me because every time I thought we had reached peak dysfunction, J.D. Barker essentially said:

“Cute. Keep reading.”

My biggest issue—and the reason this stayed at four stars—was that sometimes the darkness felt like it was trying a little too hard.

At a certain point I understood.

Serial killer = bad.

Diary = horrifying.

Everyone involved = desperately needs therapy.

Can we get back to the investigation now?

But here’s the problem:

I still couldn’t stop reading.

The pacing, the countdown, the clues, and Porter’s determination to understand the mind behind 4MK kept me invested all the way through.

WTP VERDICT

Serial killer? ✔️Detective with personal demons? ✔️Disturbing diary? ✔️Missing victim + ticking clock? ✔️Me questioning J.D. Barker’s browser history? Absolutely.

RATING- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Fourth Monkey is brutal, clever, creepy, and seriously messed up.

Not quite five stars because occasionally it felt like the book was standing over me yelling:

“ARE YOU DISTURBED YET?”

Yes, J.D.

I am.

You can stop now.

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