Category: books

What The Dead Want. M.J Lee

DI Ridpath #10

This series is constantly one of my top two British crime thriller, police procedural, reads

M.J Lee has created a unique character. DI Tom Ridpath has two jobs. His main job is in the Major Investigation Team of Greater Manchester Police. But following treatment for cancer he was seconded to the Corner as her investigator, a job he is still doing four years later, although he is increasingly back in the fold of the police.

The uniqueness of the situation sees Ridpath investigating deaths for the Coroner that sometimes haven’t raised suspicions of the police.

In this case a high death rate at a Residential Care Home for the elderly.

At the same time Ridpath is tasked, by the police, to look at the case of a fourteen year old boy who went missing during the Covid lockdown, and was never found.

Why was the case so badly handled in the first place?

It’s a hot chalice for Ridpath, often seen as an outsider, and an ideal scapegoat, could this be somebody engineering his failure.

Covid took its toll on the police and they were slow to respond, officers went sick and the continuity of the investigation was shattered. So what can the new investigation find, without highlighting just how badly the police had messed up, without Ridpath taking the blame.

Meanwhile a serial killer is lounging in a high security hospital plotting his escape. Ex medical examiner Harold Lardner wants revenge on the people that put him in jail. That includes everybody at Greater Manchester Coroners Office.

The residential care home starts to crop up in Ridpaths missing persons case, and his inquiries for the Coroner are being thwarted by the care home management.

Surely the two cases can’t be related.

Lardner is plotting and pulling strings like a master puppeteer, but surely he can’t have been playing the long game and somehow be responsible for the disappearance of the boy four years ago.

This is a great story in a great series.

The main character, Ridpath, struggles with his work life balance. A a widowed father with a fourteen year old daughter his home life is fractious. As a cop with two jobs, which comes with often conflicting loyalties, work is also fractious.

Ridpath and the recurring characters, the background storyline running through the series, and the story within each book makes these books unmissable.

Pages:394. Publisher Canelo Crime

Zodiac. Conrad Jones

It’s a common name in serial killers, one factual and many fictional but this Zodiac story is a real standout. One of the fastest paced psychological thrillers I’ve read for a while, and what a story.

With a time line that dances back and forward between previous kills and the current investigation the tension is built quite quickly.

The first murder, four years ago is brilliantly written without being gratuitous, the tension of a girl walking through the woods to her death, alluding to the horrors she’s been through since she was kidnapped, and the way she is about to die, without going into the gore of a complete description.

Today, a young brother and sister leave home with no breakfast, their mom and dad still in bed sleeping of last nights alcohol and drugs excesses, witness a gang fight on a bus. Two teenagers are killed one stabbed, the other hit by a car as he runs from the scene.

Another day on the streets of Liverpool. They live in a low socioeconomic area where kids hang out around a row of shops at night, where rumours are rife that the owners of the shop are grooming young girls, but those girls don’t care because they are actually getting the attention they should be getting at home, but it comes at a cost.

One of the boys killed on the bus is the son of one of Liverpools biggest organised crime groups. A violent man who leads a violent gang.

He wants the killer of his son.

More girls go missing and eventually bodies start to turn up.

It is when all of these seemingly isolated strands start to knit together that things really start to get dangerous on the streets.

The Police are running investigations into missing persons, murders, grooming, and organised crime gangs. Some of these are linked, some are just distractions that throw red herrings in their direction, but ultimately they realise they are after one person. The Zodiac.

The problem is the head of the Gang is also running an investigation, and his interrogation techniques are not as friendly as the police’s, his crew don’t have to stay within the niceties of the law, they can use things like pliers, drills and blowtorch’s.

Who will untangle the threads of the investigation first. Will the Gangs attempts to find their bosses sons killer get in the way of the police’s attempts to find Zodiac, or is it really one person they are both after.

I loved this book, well nearly. The cadence of the story telling is wonderful. The plot is fantastically woven right up to the last page it provides shocks and twist. But……there is a but.

Why do authors go to so much trouble getting the crime and policing side of a story right and then do such a poor job of other aspects.

There are two major scenes where the Fire Service is involved in this book, and the inaccuracies and naivety of these sections of the book was in stark contrast to the rest of the story.

I know not many people would pick up on this but I’m sure a few will.

For me, if I was writing reviews with ratings, this would have dropped an easy five star to a four. If those scenes had have been at the start of the book I would have put it down, but thankfully I was fully hooked by then.

Would I recommend it yes. It does get a bit gory in places, but it’s well placed, essential to the story, and not overly graphic.

The sections where the author talks about grooming are well written and I wouldn’t really say there’s any section I would warn about for triggering.

It is one of the best UK based psychological thrillers I’ve read for a very long time.

Pages: 402. Publisher: Red Dragon Books.

Onyx Storm Rebecca Yarros

To start with I acknowledge that I am not the target audience for this book.

Last year I read the first two in the series, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, as a challenge to myself to read a different genre, and I really enjoyed them.

This book, the third, has been really hyped over the two or three months prior to its publication, and I was one of the people really looking forward to seeing what happened after the cliff hanger at the end of Iron Flame .

Before I read it I saw some reviews where people were stating that they were struggling to catch up with the plot or make sense of where the story picked up immediately after the end of the last book.

Some even went as far as to say they had reread Iron Flame just to make sense of the start of this book.

The story told through the series is actually quite complex, with people of different families having different allegiances, dragons and other mythical monsters forming bonds with different people, all having their own intricacies.

So with Iron Flame finishing at the end of a vicious battle, which saw a whirlwind of death, injury, and changing sides, it’s easy to see why people were a bit bamboozled, I was over 100 pages in before I was comfortable with being caught up and on the right track.

Onyx Flame continues in the aftermath of a battle. Lines had been crossed and alliances tested, stretched and in some cases broken.

Spoiler alert if you haven’t read the first two books

Xaden is not all that he seems, he has bad blood running through him, poisoning his soul and it should be turning him to the dark side, but he’s fighting it.

Violet won’t accept that she’s losing him and sets out, with her friends from the Fourth Wing, to try and find a cure. This involves trying to locate the mythical seventh breed of dragon.

At the same time the Wyvern are attacking with towns and villages falling.

As Xaden tries to hide his changing bloodline he helps to battle the type of beings that he is turning into.

During the quest, and one of the ensuing battles Violet meets her ultimate enemy, the her of the enemy, and only one of them can be allowed to live, unless Violet crosses over.

Although the main gist of this story is the quest to find a cure, and the seventh breed, it’s also a story of war and politics, and as with the previous book’s loyalties

And of course the relationship between Violet and Xaden.

I put a warning on my blog about the first two books, that although they were classed as young adult, they contained some graphic spice scenes. I was amazed how many people replied thanking me because their young, thirteen and fourteen year old, teenagers had been asking for the books as presents. Well if anything the spice in this book is even more graphic.

So what did I really think of the book.

Would I have read it all the way through if I hadn’t read the first two. No, I read this because I became invested in the whole story.

If this was the first book would I have been as engaged. No, if this was the first book I would have given in after the first fifty or sixty pages.

Will I read the next instalment. Yes. I’m invested in the characters and as this book ends on an even bigger cliff hanger than the last one I feel compelled to read whatever comes next.

That’s the sign of a clever author. Like Ink Black Heart in the Strike books by Robert Galbraith, I might not have loved the book, but the ongoing story has me hooked, but if the next one is in the same vain as this one, it might be my last.

Publisher Piatkus. Pages 544. Audiobook length 23.54 hours. Narrator Jasmin Walker

The Collector Series. Dot Hutchison

There are four books in this series, I picked the first one up over Christmas and finished the last one on the second of January.

Yes, I was hooked.

This is a remarkable series, not just for the stories, which are superb, but for the structure and the way they are written.

The stories centre around an FBI team in the Crimes Against Children division.

Each book contains a gripping story but is told from a different team members point of view, with that character in each book being written in the first person.

In the case of the first book the first person, present tense is mainly used for one of the victims.

This, almost unique, style of writing over the series gives a great insight into the personality, emotions, and relationships in high profile investigation teams.

#1 The Butterfly Garden

Teenage girls kidnapped from the streets and held inside a secured garden. The man who takes them is only known to them as the gardener. He’s a collector, a collector of butterflies, in this case human butterflies.

Once the girl has been kidnapped the are subdued and their back is tattooed with their own unique, colourful set of butterfly wings. The girls is given a new name and released into the garden where they interact with other girls who are also being held.

The butterflies are treated well, except when the Gardener wants sex. In his mind he’s being gentle and saving them from the outside world. But they have a life span and when they reach 21 he kills them, before putting them into a glass frame in resin to display them.

But he’s not the biggest threat to the girls. His son is a monster and uses, and abuses, the girls in the worst way.

Special Agent Victor Hanoverian, and his partner Brandon Eddison, and their team investigate the latest disappearance and start to piece together a case that surprises even these veterans.

The pace of this story is frantic. Following one of the girls experience from just before she’s taken, until ……..well until the end of the book but that would be a spoiler.

#2 The Roses of May

This time Eddison is the main character with the story being written in the first person tense from his point of view.

Young women are being killed and posed with flowers on, or around the body. The type of flowers are different for each girl and seem to have a relate to her in some way.

One of the victims sisters, Priya, is receiving flowers, specifically the same type of flowers the victims were posed with, in some type of predictive countdown to another killing, but is she the target.

Eddison has a relationship with Priya, he had investigated her sisters murder and had kept in touch.

A running theme throughout the series is that the team form friendships with victims, and in some cases the bond is more like family. Often the victims become unofficial councillors, they understand the team like nobody else can, and from very different positions, share the experiences of the crimes they are involved in.

In this story the relationship, between Eddison and Priya, is the main focus of the story and it works really well.

#3 The Summer Children

Team members are introduced through the series, in this book Special Agent Mercedes Ramirez, a background character in the previous books, takes centre stage.

Blood covered children, clutching teddy bears, are being left on her doorstep.

Each time the child is told to talk to Ramirez and that she’ll look after them. They are told by a woman who’s forced the child to watch her kill their parents, telling them that they would be safe now and that she’s saving them.

Ramirez has always given the child victims of the crimes she investigates a teddy bear to help comfort them. The killer is now using this against her.

Her emotions are fraught as she tries to dig into past investigations in an attempt to find a link. The killer is described as looking like an angel, and in a really unusually spin the children are all sure it’s a woman.

#4 The Vanishing Season

One of the newest members of the team, Eliza Stirling takes the first person point of view for the final book in the series.

A young girl goes missing around Halloween time. She was walking home from school in a nice safe neighbourhood and nobody saw a thing.

The girl bears a striking resemblance to Stirling, enough for her to be moved to a desk for the investigation because her looks are to emotional for the family.

Her frustrations are shared by her partner Eddison. It’s the anniversary of his sister’s disappearance, and she was about the same age as the latest victim, and had the same blonde hair and blue eyes, and he is also sidelined because of the triggers the similarities might bring.

The detective in charge of looking for Edison’s daughter is long retired but he never stopped looking for her.

When he, and others start to link numerous disappearances over nearly 30 years, it looks like a serial kidnapper has been taking girls for generations.

The story of the investigation, in this book, is a tool to examine the relationship between Stirling and Eddison, and the extended team of FBI agents and past victims.

It’s one of the best finales to a series I’ve ever read.

Emotions run high, friendship and relationships are strained the bonds are tight but not indestructible.

This is a short but brilliant series. I had not heard of Dot Hutchison before but these books have been available for some time. Why she’s flown below my radar I have no idea. But she is firmly on it now.

Publisher Thomas & Mercer

Classic? What are they, and why ban one because writing styles might offend.

A recent headline in Wales got me thinking. The Welsh Joint Education Committee have banned the “Classic”, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, from its GCSE reading and studying list, stating racism in the writing could be seen to be offensive.

This got me thinking.

What is a a Classic, and why do we class some books as classics, what are they actually supposed to teach us.

At secondary school, in the 1970’s I was made to take CSE English Literature. Some of my brighter friends took it at O Level.

I didn’t read any of the books on the reading list. Mainly because I found them boring and stuffy.

I’ve read many of them since, and some of them I even found entertaining. But what was I supposed to learn from books like Lord of the Flies, White Fang, Rebecca, and others I can’t even remember.

My friends taking O Level suffered even more, Dickens and Shakespeare weighed heavily on their reading list.

Growing up on a huge council estate in Birmingham, these books bore no relevance to anything we were experiencing.

At the time my reading was mainly based on my father’s discarded WWII paperbacks and the occasional spy book. At thirteen these held relevance. The war was over but still recent enough to be fresh in the mind of many of the adults in my life. The Cold War was at its height.

What I didn’t know at that time was just how much reading would mean in m life.

I’m a bookworm with my own review blog. I get sent advanced copies of books so that I can review them prior to publication.

I embrace reading and love to think that I encourage other people to read.

How do I do this. I tell the truth about books I enjoy. I never write a negative review, because I know reading is subjective. Just because I don’t like something, why should I write something that might put somebody off a book they would really enjoy.

To flip that why do education boards select books, Classics, that have no relevance, and in all likelihood will put people off reading in their formative years.

I understand that some people will want to study and research the history of literature and writing styles. That can be done at Higher Education for that minority group.

To ban a book because it has historical, but accurate for the time, phraseology, in my mind, is counterproductive.

We should learn from the past, bad things as well as good.

One of my favourite writers, in American Fiction, is Chester Himes. His Harlem crime series, set in post war New York is full of information that would be hard to find in many none fiction books.

His main characters Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones, are fierce, black detectives, working in the slums of Harlem.

Chester Himes was born in the early 1900’s and lived in a similar area to that which he wrote about. His accounts, although fictional are true to life.

Another American author, whose books would be seen to be offensive by some is James Ellroy. The LA Quartet contains era appropriate, and accurate language. Loosely based on real life events, the fictional characters often interact with real people of the time.

Some of the content would be massively controversial today.

In my mind, these are Classics, and if you read these you cannot help but compare the occurrences of, in Himes case the 1950s, and in Ellroy’s case the 1960s, with today’s society.

It’s not just American writers.

Colin Dexter, in his Morse books, plots the changes of Policing in the 1980s. Language and attitudes accurate to the era are vastly different to that of today, they can be seen to be changing throughout the series.

The books are entertaining but also allow the reader to look at how much has changed in the U.K. over the last 40 years or so. In life in general, as much as Policing, things changed vastly during that era.

There will be people who love Agatha Christie, I’m not one of them. Her books would be classed as cosy crimes today. The language and attitudes in her books are another example of accurate for her era, but would be found offensive today.

In my mind we shouldn’t be banning books because of when they were written, we should embrace and learn from them.

Do we learn from the Classics? Writing styles maybe, but societally no.

They are too far in the past. Dickens wrote about the mid to late 1800s. Shakespeare wrote about the 1500s. This is history and bears no real relevance to modern literature, so how are they still on Literature Reading Lists., below higher education.

Everybody will have their own opinions and I hope my little rant doesn’t offend, but I do hope it provokes some discussions.

Books of the Year

It’s that time of year again. Hopefully all the presents are brought and wrapped.

I just thought I’d look back at my favourite reads of the year, and add links to my original blogs

My favourite book this year is by Greg Iles. Southern Man is the culmination of of the Penn Gage series. Which in turn is probably my favourite modern American Crime series. Set in the Deep South it looks at the effects that one man can have on an electoral campaign. When I was reading it I thought “Trump” now, scarily, I’m thinking “Musk”

Is a great story to finish off a brilliant series

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2024/07/06/southern-man-greg-iles/

Talking of series my favourite new find in British Crime Fiction, is the Cassie Raven series by A.K Turner. Raven is a school drop out, goth, who finally settled down and has become a Senior Morgue Technician.

She has a forensic eye, and a deductive mind, and pairs up with Phyllida Flyte a Police Detective who, in personality, is about as far removed from Raven as possible. But they make a formidable team in this series. I found and binge read the series without breaking to read anything else. Yes it hooked me.

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2024/08/03/body-language-life-sentence-case-sensitive-and-dead-fall-by-a-k-turner/

The biggest surprise for me, this year, has been the fact that I was intrigued by the amount of people I saw reading Fantasy books. Every time I jumped on a train, every coffee shop I went in somebody, and on many occasions quite a few people, were reading fantasy books. All age groups, and all genders, seem to be reading these books. So I thought I’d try one.

One of my favourite crime authors, and fellow book blogger Noelle Holten, recommended Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. This was the second in a series so I downloaded Fourth Wing, the first, and with some trepidation dived in. I was instantly enthralled by what is, at its core,the story of a girl who joins the army and goes through basic training. The difference being people die when they fail. And instead of modern technology the armies rely on magic and dragons.

Oh and it’s spicy. When I downloaded it of Amazon it was listed as youth and young adult fiction. On my initial blog I had several people replying thanking me for being honest about the “spice” as they had considered buying it for their early teenage kids.

It’s definitely an 18 if you are going to use the movie classifications.

Both books are fantastic and I have the third on preorder and can’t wait for publication in January.

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2023/12/11/fourth-wing-and-iron-flame-by-rebecca-yarros/

There are other series I haven’t mentioned. Angela Marsons has added two books to the Kim Stone series, and this is always going to be my favourite UK Police Procedural series. Set in the Black Country, great characters, both recurring and occasional. Utterly brilliant.

The True Crime, and autobiographical book Every Contact Leaves a Trace, by Jo Ward is a gritty read by one of the UKs top CSIs. Jo has been on TV a few times in fly-on-the-wall documentaries about murders in the West Midlands.

What those programs don’t show is what’s going on in the Forensic Scientists mind, how some cases can have an adverse effect on the mind and the body.

I have worked a few times with Jo and to see her put her heart on her sleeve like this is tremendous. It’s a must read for crime fans but should be compulsory for anybody thinking of joining the Police as a CSI.

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2024/05/18/every-contact-leaves-a-trace-jo-ward/

What a year to be a reader. I can’t wait to see what 2025 brings

Mercy Killing. Lisa Cutts

A good story but it comes with a warning.

The story centres around victims of child abuse, and although there is no gratuitous scenes, it is alluded to strongly, and may act as triggers to anybody who has been affected by these crimes

DI Harry Powell is newly promoted, in an unhappy marriage, and is the father to two teenage sons.

He has a wondering eye, when it comes to attractive women, but is to afraid of his wife’s r eaction to anything other than looking.

In short, he’s a wonderful character for a series.

In his first major investigation as DI he, and his team, investigate the murder of a man who has been convicted of child abuse.

The man is found in his flat, hands secured with cable ties, and strangled with another.

From the start of the book the reader is led down the line of knowing who the killers are, but as the book moves on it becomes less obvious and there appears to be a handful of people who are in the frame.

As the last few chapters draw the story to a conclusion these suspects spiral around until the murderer is finally identified.

Throughout the book Lisa Cutts does a brilliant job of looking at the long term psychological damage suffered by people who are abused as children.

What she also does really well is examine the effect it has on Police Officers. The difficulty in investigating the murder of a monster who has abused children. The fact that most people, cops included, would probably think he got what he had coming to him. But they still have to identify and arrest the people responsible, ensuring fairness in justice.

Part of the book also looks at the tragic consequences of making accusations of abuse, another trigger warning.

As much as I’ve made this sound like a tough read it’s actually not. It’s a good Police Procedural, but it’s also thought provoking.

Pages: 365. Publisher: Bloodhound . Series number 1/3 so far Audiobook. 11 hours 2 minutes. Narrator Iain Batchelor.

36 Hours. Angela Marsons

Wow. In fact several wows

Wow 1 How is this book 21 of the series. I know time flies but it only seems like yesterday I was enthralled by Silent Scream.

Wow 2 The fact that the series just goes from strength to strength

Wow 3. What a brilliant story.

Kim Stone and her team are back, but at first not officially.

When Stones not so favourite journalist turns up on her doorstep with a half baked story Kim should not be giving it any credence, but there is something about the message that Frost brings her that impacts and makes her take it seriously enough to text her team, on their day off.

So what exactly is it that grips Stone. Frost has been given a deadline. If she doesn’t follow the clues she’s going to be sent, and solve the puzzle within 36 hours, somebody is going to die.

Not everybody, including Stone’s boss take it seriously and the team are given the opportunity to bail out, or help Kim with the investigation on a voluntary basis.

To make matters more complex Stone includes Frost in the team and gives her a seat in the office.

Even those that decide to stay find this a step to far and the tension in the office is palpable.

The first clue leads them to a box, amongst the contents is an audio file in which a person can be heard screaming.

As each clue is discovered the contents get more horrifying.

I’m running out of superlatives to describe Angela Marsons books. Amongst all of the things she’s always good at, characters, plot, settings, this one added a rhythm to story that only the really best authors seem to get right.

Any author can add pace but this story pulses. The anxiety of a new clue and the rush to find it, the lull and anticipation when the team, back in the office, are waiting to hear what Kim and Bryant have found whilst out in the field.

As a Black Country lad I always look forward to seeing where the plot will be set, in this case they race across many locations that are absolutely perfect for hiding clues.

Pace, suspense and a terrific story meant that I read this book in as close to one sitting as it is possible whilst carrying on with a normal life.

Can it be read as a standalone, yes.

Should you read the rest of the series in order, I would, but then again I’m lucky enough to have been in from the start.

Pages. 362. Publisher. Bookouture. Audiobook length. 8 hours 3 minutes. Narrator Jan Cramer

A Random Kill. Andrew Barrett

Billed as the start of a new series, I can only hope it turns out to be a long one

I like my main characters to have a bit of grit. Detective Sergeant Regan Carter has a whole quarry.

A fiery red head, who has just been transferred to her nightmare job by the husband she’s just divorced, Regan hates dead bodies. She hates the smells, the body fluids, the injuries, the fact that they fart and belch when the trapped gases get released, in fact there is nothing about them she can get along with.

So as a piece of revenge, the worst thing that her nearly ex-husband could do, would be to get her transferred to one of the busiest murder teams in the country.

Just to put the icing on the cake she is replacing a woman that was dearly loved by her team and who died in a freak accident, with everybody presuming that one of the existing DCs on the team would get her post.

Regan Carter, yes she is named after the two main characters in the 1970s TV series The Sweeney, has a mouth that would match Gene Hunt, from another famous series and has an attitude to match, so making friends is not at the top of her list when she arrives at the new team.

Neither is getting involved with a complicated murder based around the drug scene in Leeds.

What follows is one of the best introductions to a new series I’ve read in a very long time.

A seemingly random shooting of a woman, her child taken in his pram, is Carters introduction to her new job.

But is it as random as it seems. Carter is the epitome of a “Dog with a Bone” and in her brash manner manages to annoy both her bosses, her peers, and the local villains.

In the real world she would undoubtedly be sacked, but in the none woke world of crime fiction, she is a breath of fresh air.

A bit like real world policing there are times in this book when a wry grin cannot be avoided. It’s the only way to deal with the horrors the detectives, and the readers, encounter, and in this book there is one very imaginative, and gory, way of killing.

I really hope this series is a long runner, because there is some entertaining mileage in Regan Carter.

Publisher: The Ink Foundry. Pages: 415. Available now

Zero Risk. Simon Hayes

This is the book I’ve been waiting for, for years.

Back in the 1970’s, as a young sailor, I discovered Robert Ludlum via the Matarese Circle. I loved his books and found others like him, Nelson Demille being another favourite reads in the down times on board deep sea tankers.

Moving into the 1980’s I devoured each of Tom Clancy’s books, well the early ones anyway.

I loved espionage thrillers.

But there has been a very thin offering of new authors worthy of these, until now.

Zero Risk by Simon Hayes has filled the void.

The book isn’t about espionage in the more traditional sense, it’s about a person who tries to bring down one of Britains biggest banks, and in so doing the Prime Minister.

It has a touch of the Dan Brown, with the antagonist sending cryptic emails with art references in them, but although they add to the story, if you don’t get them, they are quickly explained.

The plot, as written on the Amazon page.

23 December 2024… Rob Tanner should have been enjoying a rare day off from his life-consuming work as Chief Operating Officer at one of the country’s largest banks. But a panicked phone call from a senior colleague forces him to put his Christmas plans on ice: more than a thousand of the bank’s accounts have seen their balances increased by a factor of ten. Exactly ten.

Tanner enlists the help of brilliant American cyber security expert Ashley Markham, but the attacks only worsen: bank balances rise remorselessly and spread to all the nation’s banks. The only clues to the hacker’s intentions are cryptic daily emails, centred on Hieronymus Bosch’s medieval representation of the seven deadly sins—and packed with colourful artistic and cultural references—taunting Tanner and the newly incumbent Prime Minister, James Allen.

With financial markets—and the very world as he knows it—on the brink of collapse, Tanner races against the clock to decode not just the bizarre emails but their deeper meaning, and the implications for who he can really trust. All the while, his former boss “The Toad” is seeking revenge… and answers of his own.

That only really covers the first couple of hundred pages of a book that stretches to nearly eight hundred pages.

There were times in the book I thought I had things cracked, but then something would happen that would throw me entirely in a different direction.

There were times when I thought, “this has to be almost the end, how come there are so many more pages to read”, but a twist would open up another chapter.

Simon Hayes uses the fact that this is a standalone novel to its best advantage.

Nothing, and nobody is sacred. Anything can happen to anybody.

Having said that there are is no shark infested custard. There are no improbable situations. Everything is scarily plausible, and realistic.

An absolutely stunning read.

Pages: 780. Published: The Rubriqs Press Limited. Audiobook length: 25 hours 8 minutes. Narrator Stephanie Racine