#BlogTour - The Curfew by T.M. Logan

I should have known something was wrong. I should have sensed it. Felt it in the air, like the build-up of pressure before a thunderstorm, that heavy, loaded calm.

The curfew
Andy and Laura are good parents. They tell their son Connor that he can go out with friends to celebrate completing his exams, but he must be home by midnight.

The lie
When Connor misses his curfew, it sets off a series of events that will change the lives of five families forever.

The truth?
Because five teenagers went into the woods that night, but only four came out. And telling the truth might mean losing everything...

What would you do?

I thoroughly enjoyed T.M. Logan’s previous novel TRUST ME which was the first I had read of his work. THE CURFEW is to my mind even better. When Connor fails to meet his curfew, his parents are initially unaware that he didn’t return home at midnight. To be honest, given the lengths they go to later in the novel, it is a little surprising that it takes them so long to realise their son is missing but it is excusable. When he appears, and is implicated in the disappearance of a 16-year old girl in his class, Andy and Laura refuse to believe he could be involved. 

Logan tells the story largely in the first person from Andy’s POV and Andy comes across as a loving and dedicated father. He is painted very realistically, feeling a distance growing between him and Connor as the latter reaches ‘the difficult teenage years’, struggling to recapture the closeness they shared when his son was younger. Shaken by the police’s apparent focus on his son, Andy tries to investigate independently, looking into the missing girl, the other teenagers who were there when she disappeared, and their families. It is frustrating, and entirely believable, that Andy stumbles from one encounter to another, proving that he is not a trained investigator, and potentially making things worse. The reader simultaneously winces, as Andy gets deeper into trouble, and understands that, in similar circumstances, we would act similarly.

The characters, with one exception, are ordinary people, flawed, three-dimensional people who are utterly believable. The exception is Harriet, “Harry”, the couple’s younger daughter, who is no less believable but is a precocious, 12-year old who could teach Sherlock Holmes a few tricks. Harry is a wonderful creation who epitomises the drive to help Connor as well as the confusion and hurt over the situation in which he finds himself.

THE CURFEW is a tense, claustrophobic domestic thriller. It is well-written and maintains the anxiety, the feeling of helplessness, of events piling up which point in a direction completely at odds with Andy’s and Laura’s belief in their son, a paradigm shift - could Connor by guilty of something horrible? How well do they really know their son? It is a breathless finish to a quick paced, intense novel. 

Thanks to T. M. Logan, Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers and Zaffre Books for the invitation to take part in the Blogtour.

#BlogTour - The Goodbye Coast by Joe Ide

From the Publisher -The seductive and relentless figure of Raymond Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe, is vividly re-imagined in present-day Los Angeles. Here is a city of scheming Malibu actresses, ruthless gang members, virulent inequality, and washed-out police. Acclaimed and award-winning novelist Joe Ide imagines a Marlowe very much of our time: he’s a quiet, lonely, and remarkably capable and confident private detective, though he lives beneath the shadow of his father, a once-decorated LAPD homicide detective, famous throughout the city, who’s given in to drink after the death of Marlowe’s mother.
 
Marlowe, against his better judgement, accepts two missing person cases, the first a daughter of a faded, tyrannical Hollywood starlet, and the second, a British child stolen from his mother by his father. At the center of COAST is Marlowe’s troubled and confounding relationship with his father, a son who despises yet respects his dad, and a dad who’s unable to hide his bitter disappointment with his grown boy. Together, they will realize that one of their clients may be responsible for murder of her own husband, a washed-up director in debt to Albanian and Russian gangsters, and that the client’s trouble-making daughter may not be what she seems.

Steeped in the richly detailed ethnic neighbourhoods of modern LA, Ide’s GOODBYE COAST is a bold recreation that is viciously funny, ingeniously plotted, and surprisingly tender.

“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”

Raymond Chandler’s work is very important to me. THE LITTLE SISTER, Chandler’s fifth Philip Marlowe novel, was my introduction to crime fiction and I then went back and read them all in order from THE BIG SLEEP to PLAYBACK. I regularly re-read them, a leather-bound copy of the Penguin paperback of THE BIG SLEEP being a particularly valued possession. My eldest son is named Philip, largely due to the quotation above from Chandler’s essay THE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER. I have a lot invested in Philip Marlowe and so, despite having enjoyed Joe Ide’s IQ novels, approached his ‘modernisation’ of Marlowe with no little trepidation.

Ide’s Marlowe is an unlicensed PI in 21^st Century Los Angeles and, from the first few pages, it is evident that this is a very different Marlowe. Ide utilises a third person narration rather than Chandler’s first person; Marlowe, a loner in the original books, has a strained relationship with his father, a functioning alcoholic police officer. The plot of THE GOODBYE COAST is fast moving and gripping as Marlowe works two cases, searching for the missing teenage stepdaughter of a faded Hollywood actress while also trying to help an Englishwoman whose estranged husband has taken their son to the United States without agreement. In both cases he is aided, at times hindered, by his father. 

Marlowe himself is quick-witted, witty and likeable. He is intelligent and principled, although not infallible; his mistakes often lead him into unexpected, frequently funny, situations. The City of Los Angeles, very much changed from the 1940s, is as much a character in the story as Chandler’s LA was. Marlowe’s local knowledge and his ability to interact across various ethnic neighbourhoods help to propel the story forward. The characters are all well drawn and the dialogue is excellent. The fading star, Kendra, and her daughter, Cody, are both superbly, annoyingly selfish and self-centred, and the relationship between the latter and Marlowe’s father is sitcom worthy.

Coming to the novel I was concerned that Ide’s Philip Marlowe would not be Chandler’s Marlowe, and he’s not, and he’s not my Marlowe, but I am not sure that really matters. Ide has created a detective for the 2020s, ‘an honourable man’ who shares the spirit of his predecessor and embodies the qualities and character Chandler would demand of his hero. THE GOODBYE COAST is a very entertaining modern detective story in its own right and that Joe Ide’s Philip Marlowe shares traits with the original is a bonus.

#BlogTour - The Lost by Simon Beckett

A MISSING CHILD

Ten years ago, the disappearance of firearms police officer Jonah Colley’s young son almost destroyed him.

A GRUESOME DISCOVERY

A plea for help from an old friend leads Jonah to Slaughter Quay, and the discovery of four bodies. Brutally attacked and left for dead, he is the only survivor.

A SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH

Under suspicion himself, he uncovers a network of secrets and lies about the people he thought he knew – forcing him to question what really happened all those years ago…

THE LOST is a twisty thriller which keeps you guessing until the end. Jonah Colley, a London police detective, whose life has been indelibly marked by the disappearance of his infant son 10 years previously, a disappearance that Jonah tortures himself about. He blames himself for the loss of his son, as does his ex-wife, who left him in the aftermath. Colley lost his son, his wife and, as a direct result, his best friend. When that estranged friend calls him late one night, panicked, begging for his help, Jonah drives to a desolate quay on the Thames where he discovers several dead bodies before being attacked and left for dead. As he recovers, Jonah finds that he is suspected of knowing more about the events of that night than he his telling, perhaps even that he is involved in the crimes. As he tries to discover the truth, Jonah begins to believe that there is a connection with his son’s disappearance.

Simon Beckett has delivered a tense, claustrophobic crime novel, a dark mystery in which the central character, and the reader, do not know what to believe or who to trust. It is a gripping story, a breathless page turner with believable and engaging characters. This was my first exposure to Simon Beckett and I really enjoyed it. It will be interesting to see where he takes the character next, THE LOST being the first in a series, and I look forward to discovering his previous series.

#BlogTour - Far From the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having traveled light-years from home to bring thousands of sleeping souls to safety among the stars. 

Some of the sleepers, however, will never wake – and a profound and sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel. Its skeleton crew make decisions that will have repercussions for the entire system – from the scheming politicians of Lagos station to the colony planet of Bloodroot, to other far flung systems and indeed Earth itself.

‘Space is the Brink of Death’

I really was not expecting this. I have never read Tade Thompson before but the description of FAR FROM THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN promised a slice of exciting space opera, and it is an entertaining read. I was not expecting to be drawn in so deeply, to become so invested in the characters, to discover one of my favourite reads of the year.

Ostensibly a locked door murder investigation set in space, FAR FROM THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN is a thrilling, puzzling mystery novel, an incredibly well written and satisfying one, but it is so, so much more. Michelle ‘Shell’ Campion is an inexperienced captain of a ship taking a ten year journey to the colony planet of Bloodroot. It is pretty much a ceremonial position as the ship is really piloted by the AI that controls all its functions. On waking however, Shell discovers several of the cryogenically suspended passengers dead, cut to pieces to the extent that it is impossible to confirm how many bodies she has found. Aided by Fin, an investigator dispatched from Bloodroot, Shell starts to piece together the evidence, despite a seemingly compromised AI, but soon finds she and her companions are fighting for their lives. 

The mystery is as gripping as the best noir, Thompson proving to be a great storyteller and the plot races breathlessly. But he also draws on his Nigerian, Yoruba heritage to comment on colonialism, on capitalism, on race and our treatment of ‘others’. The characters are fully rounded and totally believable, funny, frustrating, realistic. There are no absolutes, no archetypes. When the ‘villain’ is revealed, the reader is both horrified and sympathetic, the events which lead to the climax of the novel truly tragic.

I thoroughly loved FAR FROM THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN and doubt I would have discovered the book, or the author, without the invitation to take part in the BlogTour. So thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers, @Tr4cyF3nt0n, and Orbit Books, @orbitbooks for the opportunity to take part and I really look forward to discovering Tade Thompson’s Rosewater series.

REPOST The Survivors by Jane Harper Now out in paperback

My rating: 5 of 5 stars 

I have always been a sucker for 'returning home' novels and, in recent years, perhaps any year, Jane Harper's THE DRY was one of the best. THE SURVIVORS is a close second. Like her debut, this novel concerns a man returning home after a tragedy. Kieran returns to Tasmania, to a small coastal town where, several years ago his brother, Finn, died in circumstances for which Kieran has always felt guilt. Finn did not die alone and others blame Kieran too. Not long after Kieran, his girlfriend and their baby daughter arrive back in Evelyn Bay another suspicious death occurs...

Jane Harper has spun another tale of going home, to suspicion, to gossip, to retribution? THE SURVIVORS is tightly plotted and suspenseful, but it is the author's ability to draw realistic, fully-rounded and flawed characters, and her sense of place which makes the book stand out. You can feel the sand blowing against your shins, hear the waves crashing around the feet of the statues which stand in the surf and which give the novel its title. But, of course, the real survivors are those whose lives have been impacted by decisions made in the past. The book is a tour de force which builds to a climax as storms, both physical and metaphorical, rise and threaten to devastate everything in their path.

#BlogTour - Resistance by Mara Timon

Three women. One mission. Enemies everywhere.

May 1944. When spy Elisabeth de Mornay, code name Cécile, notices a coded transmission from an agent in the field does not bear his usual signature, she suspects his cover has been blown– something that is happening with increasing frequency. With the situation in Occupied France worsening and growing fears that the Resistance has been compromised, Cécile is ordered behind enemy lines.

Having rendezvoused with her fellow agents, Léonie and Dominique, together they have one mission: help the Resistance destabilise German operations to pave the way for the Normandy landings.

But the life of a spy is never straightforward, and the in-fighting within the Resistance makes knowing who to trust ever more difficult. With their lives on the line, all three women will have to make decisions that could cost them everything - for not all their enemies are German.

Mara Timon's follow up to last year's excellent CITY OF SPIES continues the story of Special Operations Executive agent, Elisabeth de Mornay as she is dropped behind enemy lines in Occupied France in the weeks leading up to the D-Day Landings. As part of an all-female team, Elisabeth works with the resistance against the occupying Nazi force, sending coded messages back to London, attempting to disrupt German plans, and spreading disinformation about the anticipated Allied 'invasion' of Normandy. Posing as a German/Alsatian gentlewoman, Elisabeth finds that she is not readily accepted by the Réseau with which she is working, indeed comes to suspect that there may be a traitor in the resistance network.

RESISTANCE is an exciting novel, tense and claustrophobic. Mara Timon captures perfectly the suspicion and fear, the simultaneous 'living on the edge' thrill of WWII spycraft. The plot does not let up, it drives forward with increasing anxiety. The characters, on both sides, are realistic and very well drawn, the dialogue convincingly authentic. While primarily an espionage thriller, the book does not shy away from the horrors of war. I thoroughly enjoyed the book as entertainment and was also inspired to dig a bit deeper into the historical reality against which the story takes place, and the author's notes at the end offer some guidance to those who want to understand the background.

RESISTANCE is superb, even better than CITY OF SPIES, and I look forward to seeing what Mara Timon comes up with next.

Thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers @Tr4ctF3nt0n, Vicky Joss of Bonnier Books @VickyJoss1 and Mara Timon @MaraTimon for the invitation to the Blogtour.

#BlogTour - The Saboteur by Simon Conway

The terrorist Guy Fowle has escaped from prison.

Jude Lyon of MI-6 has been saved from a Syrian ambush by his lover - and enemy? - Yulia Ermolaeva. 

A mysterious Russian has been murdered in London and his thumb cut off.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has made an unfortunate social connection at a party, which he hopes he can keep secret.

And suddenly, the world is literally going up in flames.

Jude needs to start putting together the pieces of this jigsaw and quickly, because someone is putting into play a terrifying Russian plan to disable and destroy the UK. Once it has begun, it is designed to be impossible to stop.

Bad enough if that someone is the Russian government. Worse if it is the psychopathic genius Fowle, otherwise known as The Stranger.

Packed with stunning action, political intrigue, authentic tradecraft, emotion, shocks and nail-biting suspense, The Saboteur takes the spy thriller to new heights.

THE SABOTEUR carries on from Simon Conway’s excellent 2020 novel, THE STRANGER, which introduced MI6 agent, Jude Lyon, and sociopathic terrorist mastermind, Guy Fowle. In the aftermath of Fowle’s attack on the Houses of Parliament, the terrorist has been captured, but escapes during a chaotic court appearance. And we are straight into the action. And what action…

Simon Conway delivers a sequel, although it works as a standalone, in which everything is turned up to 11. Fowle’s actions are apocalyptic and, as Lyon pursues him, the survival of the United Kingdom itself is at stake. The novel is an exciting blend of le Carré-style espionage, James Bond action, with a healthy dose of cynicism about the motives of the British political elite. There are many characters who could have stepped out of today’s headlines and it is difficult not to see echoes of Brexit and the UK Government’s mishandling of many aspects of the Covid19 response in Conway’s Whitehall.

#BLOGTOUR - HALF PAST TOMORROW BY CHRIS MCGEORGE

Shirley Steadman, a 70 year old living in a small town in the North East of England, loves her volunteer work at the local hospital radio. She likes giving back to the community, and even more so, she likes getting out of the house. Haunted by the presence of her son, a reluctant Royal Navy officer who was lost at sea, and still in the shadow of her long dead abusive husband, she doesn’t like being alone much.

One day, at the radio station, she is playing around with the equipment and finds a frequency that was never there before. It is a pirate radio station, and as she listens as the presenter starts reading the news. But there is one problem – the news being reported is tomorrows. Shirley first thinks it is a mere misunderstanding – a wrong date. But she watches as everything reported comes true. At first, Shirley is in awe of the station, and happily tunes in to hear the news.  

But then the presenter starts reporting murders – murders that happen just the way they were reported. 

And Shirley is the only one who can stop them.

This was fun. Bloody, but fun. The prologue details the 2012 suicide of Gabe Steadman who throws himself off a Royal Navy ship. Present day, his mother, Shirley, a retired teacher volunteers at a local hospital radio, taking requests, interacting with and cheering up patients in the wards, and returns home to share her day with her cat, Moggins, and the ghost of her son, for whom she makes bacon and banana sandwiches, which he doesn’t eat, because he is dead.

One day Shirley stumbles upon a pirate ratio station which shares local news stories of small occurrences in Chester-le-Street, the baths closing down, the local baker falling off a ladder. Next day, the local baker having fallen off a ladder, Shirley realises that the news bulletin she heard was reporting the news a day early. When a minor milk float crash happens the day after it was reported, Shirley sets off to investigate. It is an intriguing mystery for the retired schoolteacher, something on which to exercise her mind and take her away from the machinations of the embroidery circle. And then the radio news predicts a murder…

In HALF-PAST TOMORROW, Chris McGeorge has delivered a twisty mystery-thriller which is in turns delightful, gentle and cosy, then bloody and shocking. The book keeps the reader engaged and full of questions, not only about the central radio news plot, but also why, and how, Shirley communicates with her son. There is humour and creepiness. The characters are great fun. There are superficial similarities with THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB but, only in tone, and pensioner protagonists, and the books are very different although readers of one would like the other, I feel.

I enjoyed HALF-PAST TOMORROW thoroughly. It is well plotted, well told, and everything is neatly and convincingly tied up at the end. 

Thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers @Tr4cyF3nt0n, Orion Publishing @orionbooks and the Author, @crmcgeorge for the invitation to the BlogTour.

#BlogTour - Notes From the Burning Age by Claire North

From one of the most imaginative writers of her generation comes an extraordinary vision of the future.

Ven was once a holy man, a keeper of ancient archives. It was his duty to interpret archaic texts, sorting useful knowledge from the heretical ideas of the Burning Age - a time of excess and climate disaster. For in Ven's world, such material must be closely guarded, so that the ills that led to that cataclysmic era can never be repeated.

But when the revolutionary Brotherhood approaches Ven, pressuring him to translate stolen writings that threaten everything he once held dear, his life will be turned upside down. Torn between friendship and faith, Ven must decide how far he's willing to go to save this new world, and how much he is willing to lose.

Notes from the Burning Age is the remarkable and captivating new novel from the award-winning Claire North that puts dystopian fiction in a whole new light.

NOTES FROM THE BURNING AGE is a thrilling story of future dystopia, a warning about global warming and man’s need for war, a lament that it may be too late for change and that we have already sown the seeds for the events in the novel, all of these… Like Claire North’s previous novel, THE PURSUIT OF WILLIAM ABBEY, the story can be read on many levels, and the more you think about it, the more you have to think about it.

The story is told by Ven, a former holy man, in a world devastated by climate change and the industry which led to it, now caught between his former life in Temple and The Brotherhood, a revolutionary organisation who believe that man should once again tame the planet and exploit her resources to humanity’s ‘benefit’… 

“The Burning Age was too short-sighted. We shaped the world; built towers, seeded the sky, dug the earth, walked on the moon, built wonders and cured diseases. We waged wars, drained seas, built palaces in the desert. But we consumed too much. Ran too fast. … We were nearly wiped out, the peoples scattered to the furthest corners by deserts and storms. This time, we will do better. Our mistake was thinking that the fruits of man’s Labour must be shared with all. Now we know it is only for the few to lead, wisely and well.”

So speaks one character, and it is impossible to read without hearing similar sentiments from current politicians the world over, those who refuse to accept the damage human beings are doing to the planet, those who believe a trendy pledge to work towards carbon neutrality is enough. The Burning Age is now.

NOTES FROM THE BURNING AGE is as thought provoking as it is entertaining. Like any previous Claire North novel I have read, it is a book that defies genre. It is an incredible novel which deserves, almost demands, to be read more than once. It is beautiful and horrifying, hopeful and heartbreaking, the writing is stunningly good. I cannot recommend this enough.

Thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers @Tr4cyF3nt0n, Orbit Books @orbitbooks and, of course, Claire North @ClaireNorth42 for the opportunity to share in the BlogTour.

#BlogTour - I Know What I Saw by Imran Mahmood

I saw it. He smothered her, pressing his hands on her face. The police don't believe me, they say it's impossible – but I know what I saw.

This is Xander Shute: once a wealthy banker, now living on the streets.

As he shelters for the night in an empty Mayfair flat, he hears its occupants returning home, and scrambles to hide as the couple argue. Trapped in his hiding place, he soon finds himself witnessing a vicious murder.

But who was the dead woman, who the police later tell him can’t have been there? And why is the man Xander saw her with evading justice?

As Xander searches for answers, his memory of the crime comes under scrutiny, forcing him to confront his long-buried past and the stories he’s told about himself.

How much he is willing to risk to understand the brutal truth?

I have had Imran Mahmood’s debut novel YOU DON’T KNOW ME on my To Be Read pile since it came out, in both ebook and audiobook, and have not got found to reading it yet. Having finished his second novel I KNOW WHAT I SAW, I have no idea what I was thinking - Mahmood has just moved closer to the top of the list.

I KNOW WHAT I SAW is a thriller which pulls you in from the first scene and doesn’t let go until the stunning conclusion. Set over a couple of weeks, the novel is narrated by Xander Shute, a homeless man, once a successful banker, now living on the streets of London. Taking shelter in a seemingly empty Mayfair apartment, Xander witnesses the apparent murder of a woman by her lover. Feeling guilty that he did nothing to prevent the crime, Xander reports the murder to the local police giving a detailed description of the flat and what little he saw of the couple. The police investigation reveals no body, no signs of a struggle, and the photos of the scene do not match the details of Xander’s recollection.

Xander Shute is an incredibly well-drawn character, a man on the streets, seemingly by choice, plagued with memory issues, possibly a liar, certainly an unreliable narrator. The more Xander tries to convince himself, and the reader, of what he saw, the more doubt creeps in. As he recalls his former life, his friends, his girlfriend, his brother, and, particularly, the latter’s death, the more pieces fall into place, the less likely it seems that Xander could have witnessed the crime he maintains he saw, the less likely things could have happened as he recounts them. When it becomes apparent that former friends recall events differently from Xander, the mistrust of him as a narrator grows. But, is Xander wilfully misleading the reader, could he in fact be guilty of some crime, perhaps even murder, himself?

Imran Mahmood weaves an intricate web from which it is impossible to unravel the truth. Xander is a sympathetic storyteller, and Mahmood makes us really empathise with his narrator’s life on the street. I imagine many of us are guilty of avoiding the homeless, passing by ‘beggars’ without taking the time to wonder how they got to this point. Do they, like Xander, divide the city into ‘zones’ of safety and peril? Have they experienced some tragedy from which running away seemed to be the only choice? I KNOW WHAT I SAW has certainly made me think and, I hope, I will not simply walk past in future.

Thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers @Tr4cyF3nt0n, Bloomsbury Raven Books @BloomsburyRaven and, of course, Imran Mahmood @imranmahmood777

#BlogTour - Mimic by Daniel Cole (Audiobook)

In life she was his muse . . .

In death she’ll be his masterpiece

1989: DS Benjamin Chambers and DC Adam Winters are on the trail of a serial killer with a twisted passion for recreating the world’s greatest works of art through the bodies of his victims. After Chambers nearly loses his life, the case goes cold due to lack of evidence. The killer lies dormant, his collection unfinished.

1996: DS Marshall has excelled through the ranks of the Metropolitan Police Service, despite being haunted by the case that defined her teenage years. Having obtained new evidence, she joins Chambers and Winters to reopen the case. However, their resurrected investigation brings about a fresh reign of terror, the team treading a fine line between delivering justice and becoming vigilantes in their pursuit of a monster far more dangerous and intelligent than any of them had anticipated…

* * * * *

MIMIC is a London-set novel about the pursuit of a ‘theme’ serial killer. The discovery of a naked bodybuilder on a plinth in Hyde Park, his body arranged in a recreation of Rodin’s Thinker, sets DS Benjamin Chambers on a mission to track down the killer, once he has convinced his boss that the victim didn’t climb up on to the plinth, naked, on a cold winter’s night, and commit suicide… Along the way Chambers picks up a couple of ‘sidekicks’ in DC Winters and DS Marshall. All three are well-drawn characters with talents and flaws, who complement, and hinder, each other in the progress of the investigation.

Starting in 1989, there are a couple of time jumps, the first of which felt, to me, slightly awkward, Daniel Cole having introduced his characters, only to have to reintroduce them and update the reader on where they have been. It’s a minor point though, and Cole quickly recovers, with Winters in particular injecting some humour to balance the startling nature of the crimes. The key to the book, as with the more successful narratives of this genre (think of, say, the movie ‘Se7en’) is a convincing villain and an absorbing ‘theme’ to the murders. In this case the killer arranges his victims in the manner of great sculptures, taunting the investigators as he does so. 

Half the fun - and it shouldn’t really be fun, should it? - in stories of this type is in the gruesome manner by which the killer sets about creating his ‘scenes’ or, in this case, ‘art.’ The tableaux that the killer creates, replicating great artworks, are horrific, and visceral, and thrilling. Of course, such intricately designed murders require quite a suspension of disbelief from the reader. It is to Cole’s credit that, while reading, you don’t stop and wonder just how the killer could have done what he does without being discovered; where did he get the time? But it is the discovery of the artist’s ‘muse’ which kicks the plot into top gear and, from there, Cole barely gives the reader time to breathe.

The story is well-constructed and, in the audio version, brought to life by the narration by Jude Owusu, who performs the dialogue especially well. He makes the interactions between the three main characters exceptionally convincing. A really entertaining listen.

Thanks to Orion Books @orionbooks, Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers @Tr4cyF3nt0n and, of course, Daniel Cole @danielcolebooks for the opportunity to join the Audiobook Tour.