This is the third in a crime series
This book is very well plotted and is dark.
The novel is full of information about Poland.
The character development is not as good as it could be

A very riveting read. Lots of twists to keep you guessing. Loved the character of Dania, hope to see more of her in the future.

Third in the series another episode I was drawn into and could not put down.Lots of twists and turns characters that come alive highly recommend.#netgalley #littlebrownuk

Another intricate plot, with human characters.,True to the locality and readers in this area can picture where everything is happening.

I was given the opportunity to read this by NetGalley and really enjoyed it.
. It’s the first I’ve read from this author and will definitely look out for more.
The different story lines worked really well together and I was really interested in the mason side of the plot.
The characters were very well thought of and worked well together.
The pace was just right not too quick, slow or rushed at all which was enjoyable.
I will certainly recommend this book

This is the second book I’ve read in this series and really enjoyed it! I like the fact that the main character is polish and this is woven into the series well. I felt an awful lot of research must have gone into the Masons which as I knew nothing about them made the storyline enjoyable. This is book 3 in the series, I’ve read book 1 but not book 2 , will definitely be reading that soon. Excellent read.

My thanks to the Author publishers and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review.
This is the third book in this series featuring the Polish Detective set in Dundee, and whilst there are references to previous cases the story works perfectly as a standalone book. Well written this is an absorbing engaging intriguing Police procedural with quality characterisation, particularly our heroine who somewhat surprisingly has no obvious problems, which seem such a common theme with most detective series, unless you include being an excellent pianist, and enjoying the odd Polish vodka. This story sees Dania investigating a cold case, whilst a child serial killer is also on the loose, while her reporter brother Marek is working undercover as an archivist in the Freemason's lodge. Will all three cases come together, read this enjoyable book to find out.
Recommended.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for a review copy of The Family Business, the third novel to feature Dundee based DI Dania Gorska.

The police are hunting for a missing child, Euna Montcrieff, when they find the skeletonised remains of a child locked in a dovecote. He is quickly identified as 9 year old Cameron Affleck who went missing 13 years ago. With most of her colleagues working on the missing child it is left to Dania and her team to investigate what happened to Cameron and uncover the many family secrets.

I enjoyed The Family Business which has an interesting plot with several different strands. It follows Dania in her cold case but also has the Euna Montcrieff investigation humming in the background and it follows Dania’s brother, Marek, who, as an investigative journalist, is following a tip of “something big” coming into Dundee. I like the way the author keeps the investigations separate with neither of the siblings talking about their work, although it is apparent to the reader early on that they will meet because the novel is told from both points of view. I am, however, unsure about how much I like having so much more information than the investigators as it doesn’t leave so much to guess at.

The novel is full of interesting information about Poland and more than I wanted to know about taxidermy but it’s all about the plot, which is quite unusual and has a nice touch in revenge in one of the strands and a sorry tale of unexpected consequences in another. This, however, does not leave much room for character development. It’s quite an old fashioned approach with the detective being a catalyst in the investigation rather than the centre of attention. After three novels I know very little about what makes Dania tick but, to be honest, it doesn’t bother me as I like this task oriented approach.

I always like a Scottish novel as it offers a certain familiarity but Dundee is a closed book to me - I don’t even recognise some of the colloquialisms, although they’re not difficult to guess, but that’s Scotland with more than geography separating the east coast from the west.

The Family Business is a good read that I can recommend.

The third book in the Dania Gorska series set in Dundee. This time the plot centres round a serial killer abducting young girls and the cold case of a 13 year old boy found in a dovecote. The story is fast paced and easy to read but I was disappointed at the lack of any character development. A quick summer read. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

Set in Dundee, and the beautiful Tay countryside, this hard to put down story quickly draws in the reader’s attention. Children have gone missing, and the skeleton of a young boy is found chained in a dovecote. Appearances can be deceptive, as one prominent family’s secrets are revealed to be shocking and unsettling.
Thank you to netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an advance copy.

This is the third of the excellent DI Dania Gorska series set in Dundee. In this one we have a serial killer taking young girls in an audacious, opportunistic way and there’s also a cold case when the body of thirteen year old Cameron Affleck is found in a doocot (dovecote) during the search for one of the missing girls. The Affleck family are wealthy, they have a Museum of Natural History and a thriving taxidermy business. The story is dark at times and the investigation goes in unexpected directions.

There are several strands to the storytelling in this one but it works well and the novel flows. I like the police investigation team and Dania’s likeable journalist brother Marek Gorski plays a key role in this one. There are some deeply unpleasant characters especially in the Affleck family, especially Ross Affleck whose actions are vile. I like the touches of humour amongst the police team especially between Dania and DS Honor Randall who is a good character. The investigation leads them into the world of the Freemasons and that adds an intriguing element. There are some good twists in the storytelling that you don’t see coming.

I really like the character of Dania, there’s a lot to her as she’s also a very good concert pianist and her Polish background is very interesting. However, I don’t feel that her character is advanced much in this one and whilst I did enjoy the polish history and the taxidermy details they feel like story padding and didn’t advance the investigation. The resolution of two cases is a bit of an anticlimax although there are a couple of good twists at the end which helps mitigate that!

Overall, although I think this is good and enjoyable I don’t think the storytelling is as compelling as the previous two.

3-4 stars rounded up

With thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group for the ARC.

This is the third in Hania Allen's Dundee based crime series featuring the recently promoted Polish DI Dania Gorska, with a sideline as a talented concert pianist, with a journalist brother, Marek Gorski, whose paths tend to cross in their separate investigations. Dundee is a city gripped by fear and anger, when a second child, 11 year old Euna Montcrieff, flower girl and bridesmaid, disappears from a wedding reception at a hotel, taken by a killer rapist who has developed an MO of leaving a trail of the young girl's clothes that leads to the bleached dead body. The police team is led by DI Owen McFadden, the search teams for Euna including Dania and Marek, and it is Marek who stumbles across the body of a chained 9 year old boy, dying through starvation many years ago, a cold case that Dania gets to be in charge of.

The boy turns out to be Cameron Affleck, whose father, Gregor, has never gotten over the grief of his loss, cutting a pitiful figure through the years as he has dug through numerous sites in the city looking for the body of his missing son. Gregor is a wealthy man, a taxidermist who owns and runs the Dundee Natural History Museum, with his other sons, the cruel and ruthless Ross and Kenny, both of whom live with Gregor. Ross is married to Allie, he is an abusive and coercive husband who terrorises and isolates his wife. Gregor is desperate to find out what happened to Cameron all those years ago, but he is not so keen on the police coming across his other rather more nefarious activities, that involve the local Freemason Lodge that all the family males are members of, run by his novelist brother, Niall. After a tip off from an informant, Marek goes undercover at the Freemason Lodge as a archivist, a dangerous position, after the suspicious disappearance of the previous incumbent, Murray.

Allen gives us a well plotted and fascinating narrative that engages, as Dania and her close team of DS Honor Randall and DC Hamish Downie, are caught between two separate investigations, the cold case that has her delving into the past of the Affleck family and the present horrors of a serial child rapist killer. Interweaved between them is Marek looking into the role of the Afflecks in the closed and secret world of Freemasonry, getting closer to receptionist, Allie. Whilst I very much enjoyed reading the latest in this series, for which I gave perhaps an over generous four stars, there is an issue that Allen needs to address if she wants to ensure the long term success of the series. She needs to more overtly address the much needed character development of Dania, and make her feel more like a real, rounded and authentic protagonist. I love the inclusion of Polish history, culture, food, music and politics, but it will not be enough to sustain my interest in the series in the future. I look forward to reading the next in the series in the hope that Allen tackles this critical issue. Many thanks to Little, Brown for an ARC.