RoroblusMumReadsReviews/Rants

3.5* The author didn't do the best job with her killer, unfortunately. It was pretty obvious by how little they were on the cops' radar.  This book follows on from the previous one with the vet shot up at his clinic, whose wife is a cop. She makes cameo appearances here, and the civilian who helped her in the previous book is the female lead here, and the male lead is her former work partner. And he's out of his jurisdiction.  So, an on-the-surface successful guy is found offed. Who inherits his business? His wife? His secretary? His foreman? Who's a suspect? You'd think the usual suspects, right? Kind of, but the investigating cop is a bit of a plonker and has history with the out-of-his-jurisdiction cop and the bee in his bonnet means his brain isn't always working. So, not a lot of progress is made and bodies conveniently pile up. Still the bee means that he's blinkered. Yawn.  The tale gets there, but it felt a bit too unbelievable.  ARC courtesy of NetG...

 1* please don't waste your time on this drivel. Kate is meant to be a DI and she supposedly acts the way she does? Ugh, an hour of my life that I won't get back. So, Kate's accused of a hit-and-run, so when fellow cops come for her car, she just hands it over, telling them it got pranged the week before. She doesn't watch them examine it, doesn't take video, just let's them take it. Yeah, right. Doesn't ask for a warrant, either - I kid you not. Then she and her hubby, also a cop, do a bit of snooping and find out where the witness to the hit-and-run lives. They agree on a plan of sorts for the next day. Only, she sneaks out at might, driving her very visible car, finds the witness dead and gets arrested. Nuh-uh. A DNF. How on earth could this series have gotten to this number of books with this jund of shoddy storytelling and editing. Save you eyes, time and brain for something better. ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Joffe Books for my reading pleasure. 

4* Would've been a 5* read but for the unnecessary tmi about the lead  character's sex/dating life.  As an intro to the author and the series, this would've been a 5* tale for me had it not been for the above. Why bring up her recently dumped partner and even more recently dumped work colleague, plus her former boss? This added nothing to the book, especially as the latter didn't appear in the tale at all, and the colleague couldn't care less, and the ex-partner wasn't in the tale until maybe the last 15%. That aside, there was a decent team of detectives doing actual 2026 detecting, plus the lead's dad, the local coroner, doing 70s-ish detecting and getting it right.  The tale itself made me hate Americans and their innate arrogance, and their cries of diplomatic immunity. I could go into more unsavory practices, but that'd spoiler was really was a well-thought-out and dovetailed tale. I'm annoyed that not everyone who deserved to pay for their part...

 4*, nearly a 5*, but for some of the slightly implausible actions of people who should be better.  This is another decent sortie in this series, with good dovetailing of the various characters and the woes that befall them  even though some were a bit worthy of eye-rolling. At one point I thought the series might be ending here, when Victor rejected an offer, but I think now some shades-of-grey characters are even more beholden to him, and the series might end up going in a slightly different direction. Are we going to find out that the Scots sell Kasper, Zofia and Victor out in the next book, or do they end up beholden themselves and double-crossing 'allies'? We learn a bit more about Craig's past in this and he turns into a more substantial character, one who does something needed,  but which crosses a line morally. Ish, circumstances being what they are. I suspect he'll be bigged-up in the next book because now that some corruption has been weeded out, it'll be ...

4* Is the end of the series as we know it? Seems likely but there's plenty left for a spin-off series. Well, things get put to bed in this book. The guy I've hated (forgotten his name) since finding out what he'd been doing to, and was continuing to try and do, to Anna, gets a very deserved comeuppance here. A very satisfying one. I loved the collusion between Sheridan, her boss and a scally seemingly with his heart, and some morals at least, in the right place. Only in Scouseland.  There's a lot of death in this book. There's revenge I could get behind. There's playing the long game, excellent plotting, and I felt for the bereaved. Double bereaved.  There's a Jackie Collins type of epilogue, the kind where you find out what happens to each character. It's satisfying. It's closure, hence my thinking it's the end of the series. ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer, for my reading pleasure. 

4* Very nearly a 5* tale...but some bits got forgotten about. This series can be read out if order, as tbh, none of the characters have lives outside of the job - the small attempts to create a personal life for Corstorphine didn't really add anything to the storyline, nor did they really ring true, especially the potential for IVF. If it did happen, his partner would pretty much be a single parent.  The storylines starts with Janet being buried, only for her coffin to slip and dislodge a previously buried body. One who'd only just arrived in town on a mission.  Unfortunately, it's not the only death in the book, all of which kind of felt plausible. There was a good range of characters and potential killers, but when one of those ends up dead themselves, it adds another killer to the mix. The explanation when that character got revealed felt a little anticlimactic, especially with one of the aforementioned killer's 'confessions'. Who was lying and who wasn't...