Kim Stone – nigeladamsbookworm

Bad Blood. Angela Marsons

I’ve been with this series since the start, and dispite my old bias that I always thought books lost their impact the longer the series went on, this series just keeps getting better and better.

In an unusual chain of events DI Kim Stone is sent to a murder, only to find that the body isn’t actually a dead…….yet!

To all intents and purposes, to the point it’s even confused the pathologist, it looks dead, but suddenly somebody realises the man is still alive.

He doesn’t survive long and Kim, and the team, start a murder investigation that has them scratching their collective heads.

When another body turns up, killed and posed in a similar manner, there appears to be no link between the two victims.

But there is, and as the team start to put the pieces of the puzzle together hey begin to build a list of suspects.

Based on revenge, but revenge for who, and by who. The killer has an agenda, and is the epitome of the “a dish best served cold” killer.

But it’s not just the murders that Kim is having problems with. One of her team is struggling. They made a mistake and are suffering for it. Their work is affected, as is their home life.

But what really gets on Kim’s nerves is that they didn’t feel they could share the problem with her and the rest of the team.

Angela Marsons writes these books as if she’s been in an incident room. The procedures, are there but rules are to be broken, and not just by Stone. Things get done because the team use their knowledge and experience to push boundaries.

The relationships in the team. Stones trusty DS Bryant acting as the filter between her and the DC’s, and at times, her and the public. The DC’s both loving working with her but scared of her wrath hence things aren’t going well.

Even though stone hasn’t got a family she is the matriarch of her little Police team. So when one of the DC’s falls out of favour it affects everybody.

He humour is also spot on, the gallows humour of the emergency service first responders is sometimes overlooked, by others, but not here.

The interaction between Stone and Keats, the Pathologist, had me chuckling….I mean, he did think a living man was dead.

One of the things I love about these books is the way Angela introduced that element of doubt early in the series, by killing off one of the main characters. There’s not guarantee that everything’s going to turn out rosy. So you can’t take it for granted that bridges will be mended.

I saw a post on TikTok the other day where a blogger had started a thread, “ Which books do you wish you could read again for the first time” I didn’t even have to think about it. The Kim Stone series. From book 1, Silent Scream, right up to this latest instalment, all in one binge.

But now we might just have something to look forward to in that respect. Angela Marsons announced a few weeks ago that the series has been taken by a TV company that produces dramas for the BBC.

So maybe we will get to enjoy them all over again.

Pages: 415. Publisher: Bookouture. Available now. Audiobook. 8 hours 12 minutes. Narrator: Jan Cramer.

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FIRST BLOOD. ANGELA MARSONS

First Blood. Angela Marsons

For those of us who are already hooked by this series, this is a great prequal. For those of us who haven’t read any of the DI Kim Stone books, this is a great introduction to the best crime series on the shelves right now.

Either way this is a brilliant read which will have people turning the pages at a feverish rate.

First Blood takes us right back to the formation of Kim’s team, and her first day at Halesowen Police Station.

It’s a last chance scenario with Kim having made too many enemies to be accepted at most nicks in the West Midlands.

However she has an ally she knows nothing about, somebody who has known her for many years before she joined the force, and has kept an eye on her career since she joined.

This story looks at why Kim is a bit of a pariah in the force. She is definitely an acquired taste to work with, but her conviction rate should out-weigh that.

On her first day she meets her team. DS Bryant, a middle aged man who should be at least a DI at that stage in his career, so why isn’t he, and how will he react to a young DI.

DS Kevin Dawson, and I’d forgotten what a pain in the behind he was when the series first started. A man capable of disrupting even the most evenly balanced relationship, and certainly not a team player.

Brand new DC Stacey Wood, a shy almost naïve, young woman whose hidden talent is soon found to be “data-mining” from a desk. Not what DS Dawson considers to be real policing.

The first day should be an easy welcome session, but a body is found staked out on the Clent Hills. The body has been stabbed, decapitated and had the genitals removed.

Kim judges the team by how they react to the scene, and as the investigation goes on, she watches the dynamic of the team, how they work, how they bond, all the time sussing out their strengths and weaknesses. At the same time Bryant, Wood, and Stacey are doing exactly the same.

At times the team, and Stone, have as many questions about each other as they do about the case. One of the team decides to research Stone’s past and makes some startling discoveries. Will this affect the way she’s looked at?

The solving of the crimes is the main thread in this book; but just as enthralling is the thread that explores the team members and how they reacted to each other when they first meet, and during this first investigation.

I loved this book from cover to cover. It can be read as a stand-alone, or the first in a series, or as I look at it the latest in the best series there is.

The book fills some gaps and explains the relationship between many of the characters in the series, not all of them on the team.

There is a saying “There is only one chance to make a first impression” In this book we see those first impressions as the team is brought together.

But this book is a contrary to that saying. This is a second chance for those of us who follow the series to have that first meeting with Stone and the gang, and it’s absolutely brilliant.

Dying Truth Angela Marsons

What a way to start a book. The prologue see’s DI Kim Stone struggling with a broken leg as she tries to warn people not to enter part of a building where she knows they will be in mortal danger. But who are the people running into the building and what exactly is the danger.

Cut to chapter one, a few days before the prologue. The death of a young girl at a posh, private school.

It’s classical mystery writing technique but, I don’t think I’ve ever read it written in a better way.

As the story builds Kim is supported by all her usual crew, trusty Bryant, laddish Wood, and the quiet Black Country Lass Stacey. Will any of these be charging into danger at the end of the book.

The team are investigating a suspicious death at the private Heathcrest Academy. A private co-ed school, where the elite of midlands society send their children to study alongside sporting, and academic, high achievers.

Not surprisingly amongst the students there are secret societies that have seen generations of the same family pass through them. The societies employ horrific initiation ceremonies and even more horrific discipline methods.

When the body of the first victim is found, after she apparently committed suicide by jumping from one of the highest points in the school, Kim and Bryant are the first Officers on the scene.

Kim is not happy with the circumstances of the death and her suspicions are bourn-out when Keats carries out the autopsy and confirms that the girl was murdered.

The investigation is thwarted at every turn by the family, who are trying to hide their own secrets; by the school, whose principle will only entertain suicide as the cause, as murder would be bad for business; and by the students, who are either in one of the secret societies, or are scared of the pupils that are.

As the story unwinds Kim has to turn to an unlikely ally for advice, which itself holds dangers which I’m sure will hold recriminations.

As the body count begins to rise, and the climax of the book gets ever closer, the tension rises. Right up to the end it’s impossible to find out, or guess, who is running into danger, and how it will play out.

When the end comes it is no anti-climax. I had already read quotes on twitter where people said the they were left “broken” at the end, and that it was an “emotional ending”.

I thought I was ready for it, but no. It is emotional, and I was broken.

This is book 8 in the DI Kim Stone series. It can be read as a stand-alone novel, and it works well as one, but to get full impact read the others.

I was lucky enough to find Angela Marsons when the first Kim Stone novel was released, and have been onboard from the beginning.

I am a prolific reader and I can think of no bigger recommendation than, every time an new book in this series is made available, I put down whatever I’m reading and read what Stone and her team are up to. This one was the best yet.

Roll on Book 9

Pages: 399

Publishers: Bookouture

Publishing Date: 18^th May 2018.