I still can’t believe that these books have never been available in print. They have to be one of the best euro-crime series ever written and are definitely the cream of the current crop.
The Girl Who Got Revenge sees the return of Dr Georgie McKenzie and Police Inspector Paul Van den Bergen in the 5th book in the series.
George is the OCD clean freak who has a PhD in Criminology from Cambridge, not a bad achievement for a mixed-race girl from a rough London Council Estate.
Her life partner Paul is a lot older than her, and is a veteran of the Amsterdam Police, he’s also a raving hypochondriac.
What a team they make.
In this book George is struggling with her own family and with Pauls. She wants him to commit to a relationship, he seems to want to spend more time with his daughter and new granddaughter.
Just when things are getting twitchy between the pair a new investigation throws them back together.
A lorry is stopped in the port of Amsterdam. On board, amongst the 50 Syrian refugees being smuggled into the country, is a dead girl.
Van den Bergen and his team are tasked with identifying the people responsible for running the trafficking ring.
At the same time, it becomes apparent that somebody is killing a group of men who became heroes as part of the Dutch Résistance during World War 2
It soon becomes apparent that Van den Bergen’s new boos is not his biggest fan and he gets side-lined from the investigations but, in his usual style, carries on with it in his own time.
By doing this he steps outside the protection offered by the Police force and puts himself, George, and his family in danger.
Meanwhile George becomes engrossed in the investigation into the death of the war heroes. The discovery of a diary written by a young woman during the war tells the story of the small band of résistance fighters, and her love for one of them.
This is a really clever bit of writing by Marnie Riches. She uses the two cases to draw parallels between the plight of refugees from war torn countries of today, with the plight of Dutch Jews during the German Occupation of World War 2.
As the two investigations continue their paths cross. Could modern day neo Nazi’s really be smuggling Syrian Immigrants into Europe, and if so why.
Before the end of the book some of the characters are put at mortal risk.
Will everybody survive?
I said at the start of this blog that this series is the cream of the current crop of euro-crime thrillers. I read the acknowledgments at the end of the book and it almost felt like a farewell.
I hope not.
George McKenzie is a brilliant character. The stories she has been involved in are very much on topic for today’s illicit activities.
Marnie Riches has written 5 books, in this series. They are all brilliant. And they are all about to be published in Paperback.
So if you are no fan of the e-reader, now you’ll be able to read the lot in hardcopy
Pages: 282
Published by Avon
Publishing date UK: 19th April 2018.
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