A review by moreadsbooks
The Murder Code by Steve Mosby

3.0

Another day, another detective inspector. Steve Mosby has written several books (although sadly, as far as I can tell, only one as yet featuring Zoe Dolan, one of the DI queens of my heart), yet we only own two of his titles - how can this be? Mosby features a new DI in each book, and although I adore Zoe, this is still thrilling enough to get me emotionally invested in DI Andy Hicks so I have high hopes for his other books. There are a lot of the usual elements of crime fiction, especially that the lead detectives will be confounded/have their faith shaken by the inexplicable nature of the crime they're investigating, and like The Nightmare Place, the killer reveal is a little preposterous, but I was still entertained. Although some of the twists are annoying

guess how THRILLED I was that allllll of those people were beaten to death with a hammer so one dude could get away with murdering his pregnant wife. No really, guess!

, I am solidly behind the final wrinkle

although it seemed like a terrific coincidence, I can appreciate that Hicks's long lost brother was Emmaline's killer, and while I disapprove of the casual murder of a random woman in order to inflame/haunt the main detective, Hicks was savvy enough to comment both on what a buffoon he'd been & how high the cost, but also how violence begets violence and DV in general

. This summer finds me in the mood for nothing but British crime fiction both in what I'm reading and what I'm watching, so here I come for more, Mosby.