ljwrites85's review
4.0
(rounded up from 3.5)
Set in Edinburgh in 1977, back when avocado bath suites and the Bay City Rollers were all the rage, Detective Sergeant Helen Carter faces an uphill battle when she’d promoted to CID. First off she’s a woman and her father was a prominent Detective Inspector, so a lot of her colleagues don’t think she deserves to be there.
When a body is found in an old cinema, tortured with a strange symbol painted in the victims blood, she’s tasked to work with DI Jack Craven, who makes his feelings clear on the fact she should be making tea and dealing with the soppy stuff, like talking to grieving relatives.
The investigation leads to private eye and former policeman George Stanley who used to work with Helen’s father, and left the police suddenly and seems to be holding something back. More victims turn up, killed in a similar manner, it’s a race against time to find the ruthless killer before they harm anyone else.
This is a great beginning to hopefully what will be a start of a new series. I really enjoyed the historical setting, I don’t know that much about the 1970’s but as with any era before I was born holds a bit of a fascination with me.
I appreciated each of the characters were flawed, Helen who’s facing opposition on all sides, including her own boyfriend to give up her job and get a nice nine to five and have a few kids, something she’d not that keen on. Then there’s DI Jack Craven who is constantly smoking and eating Marathon bars (they’re called Snickers now, I googled it) with a wandering eye which lead to the break up of his marriage.
There was a nice use of the Scottish dialect throughout the book which to me made it more authentic and I was surprised how few words I had to use my dictionary function for.
Unfortunately there were some action scenes which I kind of lost track of what was happening. Also I don’t think the prologue while it was intriguing and drew me in, I just felt it didn’t quite fit with the story, either that or I think it may not have been expanded on enough for my liking.
Overall a promising debut that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a good police procedural. I hope to read more from JV Baptie in the future.
Set in Edinburgh in 1977, back when avocado bath suites and the Bay City Rollers were all the rage, Detective Sergeant Helen Carter faces an uphill battle when she’d promoted to CID. First off she’s a woman and her father was a prominent Detective Inspector, so a lot of her colleagues don’t think she deserves to be there.
When a body is found in an old cinema, tortured with a strange symbol painted in the victims blood, she’s tasked to work with DI Jack Craven, who makes his feelings clear on the fact she should be making tea and dealing with the soppy stuff, like talking to grieving relatives.
The investigation leads to private eye and former policeman George Stanley who used to work with Helen’s father, and left the police suddenly and seems to be holding something back. More victims turn up, killed in a similar manner, it’s a race against time to find the ruthless killer before they harm anyone else.
This is a great beginning to hopefully what will be a start of a new series. I really enjoyed the historical setting, I don’t know that much about the 1970’s but as with any era before I was born holds a bit of a fascination with me.
I appreciated each of the characters were flawed, Helen who’s facing opposition on all sides, including her own boyfriend to give up her job and get a nice nine to five and have a few kids, something she’d not that keen on. Then there’s DI Jack Craven who is constantly smoking and eating Marathon bars (they’re called Snickers now, I googled it) with a wandering eye which lead to the break up of his marriage.
There was a nice use of the Scottish dialect throughout the book which to me made it more authentic and I was surprised how few words I had to use my dictionary function for.
Unfortunately there were some action scenes which I kind of lost track of what was happening. Also I don’t think the prologue while it was intriguing and drew me in, I just felt it didn’t quite fit with the story, either that or I think it may not have been expanded on enough for my liking.
Overall a promising debut that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a good police procedural. I hope to read more from JV Baptie in the future.
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