The #Bookvent Calendar 2020 – Day 12

#Bookvent – Celebrating my top reads of 2020

My day twelve #bookvent pick comes, once again, from one of my favourite authors. This is one of those series that as soon as I get wind of a new book I am straight online to pre-order. I’m not even sure how I’d feel about a bookvent list that didn’t feature one of these books – that would be so weird! This is a long standing, highly popular series that is set not a million miles away from where I live, with a character who is somewhat acerbic at times but one hundred percent focused on justice, exactly the kind of person you would want on your side. She loves her job, her bike and her dog and if you can call her a friend, you are a very lucky person. With two books a year, and many more books to come, readers really are spoiled for choice. I narrowed my selection down to one of the two – my twelfth choice being …

Deadly Cry by Angela Marsons

You have to stop me from hurting anyone else. I don’t want to do these horrible things. Help me before I’m forced to do it again. And I will do it again because I have no choice. I’ve never had a choice.

In a busy shopping centre, a little girl clutches a teddy bear, clinging to it in the absence of her mother, Katrina. Hours later, Katrina’s body is discovered in an abandoned building. For Detective Kim Stone, it looks like a quick, functional murder. But Kim’s instincts tell her there’s more to this senseless murder than meets the eye. What was the motive for killing a young mother out shopping with her child?

Days later, a second victim is found in a local park, her neck broken just like Katrina’s and her six-year-old son missing.

But with her colleague, Detective Stacey Wood, working on another unsolved crime and a member of the team grieving the loss of a close relative, Kim is struggling to make inroads on what is fast becoming a complex case. And when a handwritten letter from the killer lands on Kim’s desk addressed to her, and pleading for help, she knows time is running out to bring the little boy home alive.

With the support of a handwriting analyst and profiler, Kim and the team begin to get inside the mind of the killer and make a shocking discovery.

Some of the victims have scratch marks on their wrists.

But these are no random scratches. The killer is using them to communicate with someone. The question is… with whom?

And if Kim doesn’t find them soon, another innocent soul will die.

The multi-million-copy bestselling Detective Kim Stone series is every bit as addictive, original and exciting as readers say and you’ll be hooked from the very first page. Nobody does it better than the Queen of Crime, Angela Marsons.

I really do love a good Kim Stone novel and this was an excellent Kim Stone novel. The story blends the usual high tension, high stakes murder investigation that readers have come to expect, with an exploration of the more personal side of the team’s newest recruit, Penn, too. We also get to see Stacey really branching out, challenging herself to get to the bottom of a cold case, even if it means letting a convicted man go free. No bad thing if he proves to be innocent after all now is it? But is he, and what twisted game is it that Kim and the team have found themselves caught up in this time? Well twisted really is the word for this one and because of that the pacing never lets up and I simply tore through the book from start to finish. Kim finds herself set against a really intriguing foe, one who is begging her to stop them but who also has more than the odd ace up their sleeve. The books are truly entertaining with characters you can root for – or hate – and a perfect blend of the personal with the investigative sides without sacrificing the quality of either. Fans of a consistent, character and story driven police investigation series really do need to get into these books as they are so much fun. It’s one of my favourite crime fighting teams in literature.

With the usual blend of action, emotion and humour, Angela Marsons really kept me on the hook and kept the shocks and surprises coming. 13 books on and this series shows no sign of letting up for which I am very thankful. Still not entirely sure I have forgiven the author for the collosal shock she dealt mid series, but I am slowly getting there, and with more books of this ilk over the next few years, I may finally let her off.

If you’d like to read my full review of the book you can find it here.

Happy #bookvent reading all

Jen