Synopsis: When the murder of a colleague is linked to a series of suspicious deaths, Detective Superintendent Greg Woods’ team are tasked with solving the mystery. New to the team is Maria Barnes, whose besmirched character sadly precedes her. However Woods quickly discovers there is more to the detective sergeant than meets the eye: her skill level, knowledge base, and investigative talents far outshine his own formidable qualities…
And why is the Secret Intelligence Service so interested in Barnes and the investigation?
It’s a race against time to stop the killer, but he’s meticulous, cunning and ruthless. He leaves the police and intelligence service questioning if they are all out of their depth…
When forces contrive against them, Woods’ life hangs in the balance and for the first time in his career he risks breaking the rules… He and Barnes decide to go it alone to uncover who or what CXVI really is… The shocking truth lies at the heart of the Government and is trapped deep underground.
My Rating: 3.5/5
My Review:
I was given an ARC of this book by thee author in exchange for an honest review. I struggled with the beginning and it took me a while to get into the book, however, I was drawn in by the characters Woods and Barnes and it was them who compelled me to persevere.
Both Woods and Marie Barnes had some great qualities which I felt were well formed in this book. My guess is, Marie is a character who will feature again. I had some mixed feelings about some of the other characters. Pamela, for instance, was naive but I felt this was slightly over done and therefore not very believable. Although in some ways, this characteristic is what allowed her vulnerability to come through. Her children I felt, could have had a bit more background story on them. They appeared now and again but a lot of their role within the story had been left out in my view.
At times it felt as if there was a whirlwind of chaos leaving me lost but there were also quite a few interesting twists which happened to keep me focused and interested in the book.
I have to say that I found the ending was very abrupt. I am not convinced I liked the way the book ended although I can appreciate the “why” …it left me wondering if it could have been done differently.
It takes courage to write a book and put it out there for everyone to read and therefore it was not a bad read for a debut novel. I will definitely check out the next book by Angie Smith.