THE BLACKBIRD CONSPIRACY by Tariq Ashkanani

 5* Struggling to think of a title for one of my best reads this year. It's beautifully British, believable, and it ends in a way that makes me impatient for book 3.

This picks up immediately where book 1 ends, with the police and Callie trying to figure out her mentor's murder. And there's more death. Senseless death, it seems until someone presumed dead happens not to be and Blackbird comes to light.

The author's drawn on some of the frankly shit, abominable, unpalatable, racist, private militia stuff that's come out in that orange twat's 2nd administration in the formerly decent US of A, now more so the plaything of said orange twat. It's only a small part of the tale but it's the thing that set things into motion, with an abuse of power - or maybe a head trip - and political lies and eventual cover-up. It's utterly believable and dovetailed. 

Callie's her usual self - boozing, smoking, junk eating, but wised-up to Richard, despite her guilt at their shared trauma. Because of him she ends up indebted to someone who'll exact their price one day, and that'll make for a smoking start to book 3. And that's without the discovery she makes that's Callie-years overdue. And, without the loss that this book ends in, just as she thought a door might be being opened. Or, is it an opening and closure of sorts? Can't wait for the next.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for my reading pleasure. 

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