Blacklight Blue by Peter May

Today, Mandie continue sher journey into the world of Enzo Macleod with a review of Blacklight Blue by Peter May. Here’s what it’s all about:

About the Book

FRANCE.

A death sentence.

Diagnosed with a terminal illness, Enzo Macleod is running out of time to crack the most confounding of unsolved French murders.

A death threat.

His daughter is nearly killed, Enzo is mugged – and then he is arrested. Someone is trying to destroy his character. Someone is framing him for murder.

A deathly enemy.

Killers from the past will stop at nothing to halt Enzo, who must use all his forensic skills to solve the case – before they succeed.

Mandie’s Thoughts

Blacklight Blue is the third instalment of the Enzo MacLeod series and this time the investigations get very personal. As Enzo is getting the news that he only has months to live, his daughter Kirsty is on her way to a job. It is only due to the fact that she is delayed that she survives a bomb that is clearly meant for her. If this is not enough Enzo is arrested for the murder of a young woman. Whilst those closest to him know that this is just not possible, the evidence is stacked against him. Thanks to a family friend and lawyer, he is released on bail and determined to find out who is trying to wreck his life and endanger those closest to him. After the details of the method used to kill the victim are released to him, he realises that there is a link to the third case in the unsolved murders he has been investigating and that to find out who is out to get him he has to solve the case.

You would have thought by now that with everything he has been put through in the previous two cases and even the start of this one, Enzo would be a little less gung-ho and selfish when it comes to his investigations. It is not the first time that his loved ones have ended up in the firing line and whilst I kind of admire his determination to solve the mystery, I also would love to slap him silly for taking so many risks, after all he is not in law enforcement and does not have the protection that goes with it.

I did wonder if Enzo had bitten off more than he could chew with this case as it turned out to be linked with an abduction years before and to solve the one he has to also solve the other. There are also more personal things that come to light that could fracture his fragile relationship with his daughter Kirsty beyond repair, but I hope not as they were just starting to find a way forward to if not forget, certainly forgive the past.

There is always so much going on in these books that the reader doesn’t get the chance to get bored and you soon find yourself swept up in the action and become invested in the outcome. It is clearly dangerous to be associated in any way with Enzo MacLeod, yet he manages to elicit a loyalty from all those closest to him that will see them follow him even if at times it is only to protect him from himself. I cant wait to see where the next case takes him and if he can for once managed to remain unscathed in his quest for the truth.

About the Author

Peter May was born and raised in Scotland. He was an award-winning journalist at the age of twenty-one and a published novelist at twenty-six. When his first book was adapted as a major drama series for the BCC, he quit journalism and during the high-octane fifteen years that followed, became one of Scotland’s most successful television dramatists. He created three prime-time drama series, presided over two of the highest-rated serials in his homeland as script editor and producer, and worked on more than 1,000 episodes of ratings-topping drama before deciding to leave television to return to his first love, writing novels.

He has won several literature awards in France, received the USA’s Barry Award for The Blackhouse, the first in his internationally bestselling Lewis Trilogy; and in 2014 was awarded the ITV Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year award for Entry Island. Peter now lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice Hally.