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cerisecarrot's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Ooor story line and worse ending
usbsticky's review against another edition
3.0
Spoilers ahead. As usual, since the 6th book, another out of the box plot.
Do not read this if you don't want the story spoiled.
The story comes at you from different POVs. One of the POVs is the murder of Adam Heath, a headmaster at a school. He is found decapitated while sitting in his car. Gillard and the Surrey police do their usual police protocol looking for physical clues, interviewing witnesses and digging into Heath's life to see if he has any enemies who might want to do away with him.
The second POV is that of a barrister (Julia McGann). She takes the case of a local criminal kingpin (Bonner) accused of multiple crimes. She tries to advise him to the best of her ability despite his hardheadedness and lack of acumen regarding finer points of the law.
Meanwhile someone has been camping out in Julia's backyard. It turns out to be a homeless street girl (Destiny), who has been through the foster system, ran away and got sold up the river as a child prostitute. She eventually escaped and is hiding out from her captors. Against her better judgement, Julia takes her in.
As the mystery unwinds, we find that Bonner was the head boss of Destiny's prostitute ring and she found Julia in order to persuade her to screw up Bonner's case so he could be incarcerated. Of course Julia refuses to do that.
So we get to the point where we connect Heath with Julia. It turns out that they had an affair while Heath was married and he was just stringing her along whereas he was the love of her life to her. She even had a miscarriage that left her unable to have children. One day in a drunken fugue with Destiny she said that she wishes Heath was dead (or that she could kill him, I can't remember). Destiny records this on her phone and then goes and kill Heath in order to get Julia to do her bidding. She blackmails Julia with the video. This is where I disagree even though I'm not a lawyer. I feel that the Julia should have gone straight to the cops, there is no reason that anyone sane would believe Destiny, video or not. Instead Julia "is forced" to do Destiny's bidding.
Anyway, without spoiling the rest of the story, the believability of the plot gets worse and worse, gets more farfetched. Nothing beyond this point makes sense.
Besides all of the above, I did not like the 2 POVs. I did not want to see anything from the criminal's POV. It spoiled any suspense factor. I get that the author wants to do something different but this isn't it. Not only are we spoiled of the mystery but frankly it's unbelievable. So it's just a 3 star for me.
Spoilers of what followed. Really don't read this unless you want the plot ending.
Julia agrees to kill Bonner. She shoots him. The police and ballistics accept this as a suicide. Destiny avoids getting captured. She naively allows Julia to lead her to her final death.
Do not read this if you don't want the story spoiled.
The story comes at you from different POVs. One of the POVs is the murder of Adam Heath, a headmaster at a school. He is found decapitated while sitting in his car. Gillard and the Surrey police do their usual police protocol looking for physical clues, interviewing witnesses and digging into Heath's life to see if he has any enemies who might want to do away with him.
The second POV is that of a barrister (Julia McGann). She takes the case of a local criminal kingpin (Bonner) accused of multiple crimes. She tries to advise him to the best of her ability despite his hardheadedness and lack of acumen regarding finer points of the law.
Meanwhile someone has been camping out in Julia's backyard. It turns out to be a homeless street girl (Destiny), who has been through the foster system, ran away and got sold up the river as a child prostitute. She eventually escaped and is hiding out from her captors. Against her better judgement, Julia takes her in.
As the mystery unwinds, we find that Bonner was the head boss of Destiny's prostitute ring and she found Julia in order to persuade her to screw up Bonner's case so he could be incarcerated. Of course Julia refuses to do that.
So we get to the point where we connect Heath with Julia. It turns out that they had an affair while Heath was married and he was just stringing her along whereas he was the love of her life to her. She even had a miscarriage that left her unable to have children. One day in a drunken fugue with Destiny she said that she wishes Heath was dead (or that she could kill him, I can't remember). Destiny records this on her phone and then goes and kill Heath in order to get Julia to do her bidding. She blackmails Julia with the video. This is where I disagree even though I'm not a lawyer. I feel that the Julia should have gone straight to the cops, there is no reason that anyone sane would believe Destiny, video or not. Instead Julia "is forced" to do Destiny's bidding.
Anyway, without spoiling the rest of the story, the believability of the plot gets worse and worse, gets more farfetched. Nothing beyond this point makes sense.
Besides all of the above, I did not like the 2 POVs. I did not want to see anything from the criminal's POV. It spoiled any suspense factor. I get that the author wants to do something different but this isn't it. Not only are we spoiled of the mystery but frankly it's unbelievable. So it's just a 3 star for me.
Spoilers of what followed. Really don't read this unless you want the plot ending.
Julia agrees to kill Bonner. She shoots him. The police and ballistics accept this as a suicide. Destiny avoids getting captured. She naively allows Julia to lead her to her final death.
lucyp747d4's review against another edition
4.0
I’d like to thank NetGalley and Canelo Crime for approving me for an ARC of this book.
After being approved for the ARC I also found an audio version so gave that a listen on my commute to work. I enjoyed Marston York’s narration as well as his ability to voice the different characters.
I always look forward to the latest Craig Gillard book from Nick Louth. I find his writing so easy to absorb and quickly get swept up into the investigation. This book was no exception! Whilst this is book eight in the series you can read each one as a standalone, Nick Louth gives the reader enough information from previous books without rehashing over every storyline.
This was slightly different to his usual method of story telling. Normally the reader is following along with Craig trying to solve the crime from start to finish, this time Craig Gillard wasn’t the central focus. Instead the story flicked between two different timelines told months apart. Don’t worry Craig is still running the investigation and up to his usual tricks but as a reader I felt I was slightly ahead of him on this one.
The story unfolded differently to usual crime reads and it was refreshing to see things from a different angle. I felt that Julia was in a tricky position and could understand her predicament. This story highlighted the depths of blackmail and how far someone would go to protect their future. I have to admit that I loved Dezzy. Whilst she was a rascal I loved her candid attitude and determination to look after herself. The friendship she had struck up with Julia was unusual and very strained at points but I felt she had come the furthest in growing up.
As always Nick Louth has some shocking moments up his sleeve and I felt he left the most shocking for the end. Without spoiling it I found myself shouting no at the book because whilst I could see what was going to happen, I didn’t want to believe it. This crime read will have you gripped and wanting more, I look forward to reading the next instalment of the series.
After being approved for the ARC I also found an audio version so gave that a listen on my commute to work. I enjoyed Marston York’s narration as well as his ability to voice the different characters.
I always look forward to the latest Craig Gillard book from Nick Louth. I find his writing so easy to absorb and quickly get swept up into the investigation. This book was no exception! Whilst this is book eight in the series you can read each one as a standalone, Nick Louth gives the reader enough information from previous books without rehashing over every storyline.
This was slightly different to his usual method of story telling. Normally the reader is following along with Craig trying to solve the crime from start to finish, this time Craig Gillard wasn’t the central focus. Instead the story flicked between two different timelines told months apart. Don’t worry Craig is still running the investigation and up to his usual tricks but as a reader I felt I was slightly ahead of him on this one.
The story unfolded differently to usual crime reads and it was refreshing to see things from a different angle. I felt that Julia was in a tricky position and could understand her predicament. This story highlighted the depths of blackmail and how far someone would go to protect their future. I have to admit that I loved Dezzy. Whilst she was a rascal I loved her candid attitude and determination to look after herself. The friendship she had struck up with Julia was unusual and very strained at points but I felt she had come the furthest in growing up.
As always Nick Louth has some shocking moments up his sleeve and I felt he left the most shocking for the end. Without spoiling it I found myself shouting no at the book because whilst I could see what was going to happen, I didn’t want to believe it. This crime read will have you gripped and wanting more, I look forward to reading the next instalment of the series.
creepycrawlybookworm's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
fast-paced
4.5
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