DEAD IN THE WATER by Simon McCleeve

 4* Clever and twisted thriller, with a huge cast if potential culprits, suspects, bad guys and cops, that dovetail pretty well. Loses 1* because of the too low-key ending.

This book has a lot going on - a cop turned bad guy/a cop who's going undercover in a women's prison/ the cop's fiance/ female prisoners/ a female BAME prison governor who may be not just corrupt but actively using her position to aid drugs import and distribution/a prison guard who's rotten through and through, but possibly in a privileged position/two teenage females, one of whom goes missing/drugs gangs in the north of the UK, to list most but not all. On top, there's a storyline that seemingly starts with the disappearance of one of the young girls but not everything is as it seems, and what you get is a nicely dovetailed story that for the most works really well, with reveal after reveal coming towards the last 10%, and an ending that ties up most if what's featured. It's the ending that dropped this tale from 5* to 4* for me, because one of the bad guys just came across as not quite believable. I appreciate that UK tales may not have the gloss and drama that US-set ones do, but this felt a bit tacked-on. I mean, it did the maths and came up with a 'hmm, I suppose I can go with that' ending/feel but it just felt a tad anticlimactic. 

Oh, there's also a wedding and a couple of decent teens, the latter kind of having an added-in, inorganic feel to them, but for the purposes of fleshing out the cop and her fiancé's lives, they worked. I'd read more of this couple, but most likely in KU only.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Avon Books, for my reading pleasure.


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