Eight years ago a group of sixth form students set out on a DoE expedition. They were held, tortured and almost all escaped. Now the remaining four have moved on with their lives, but as one launches her book about the ordeal, another is killed after receiving a threatening phone call. Soon the remaining three are in danger from an unknown killer who seems to be one step ahead of the police, even DI Helen Grace.
I've long been a fan of Arlidge's writing but have only just found out that M J Arlidge is male, a surprise because he writes very strong female characters. Once again Portsmouth's finest are up against a determined killer and the story races along. Yes, it's very predictable - the truth behind the ill-fated expedition, the identity of the killer - my only concern was a little bit of continuity/lack of explanation about the driver in the first murder. Other than than that, this is just a really strong crime thriller

The Helen Grace novels never fail to keep me on tenterhooks! I think as the series has progressed the books have just got better and better. Helen and her team are investigating the murder of a prominent local character, who some years previously, as a teenager, had been held captive with 4 friends when another of the same group that had been held is also murdered. The race to protect the other two surviving friends becomes the most important thing for Helen, with a twist regarding the murderer coming as a real surprise. The relationships between Helen and her team is another facet of this series, dependable Charlie and Joseph - something of an enigma, as he's a Jekyll and Hyde character who could cause Helen damage, both in her career and in her private life. I'm looking forward to the next in the series!

All Fall Down by M.J. Arlidge is yet another fast paced and thrilling installment of his DI Helen Grace series of books. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that this one is the best yet! Helen Grace is as strong and fearless as ever, although I do feel we’re beginning to see a little more of her vulnerable side as the story progresses, which is wonderful to see.

This time Helen and her team are in pursuit of a serial killer unlike any they’ve ever come across before. Calling each of the victims, the killer has one chilling statement to make:

“You have one hour to live.”

What follows is a tense and gripping race against time as the hunt for the killer gathers pace. Somehow always appearing to be one step ahead of the police, can the killer be brought to justice before more lives are lost? Or are Helen and her team going to be just that little bit too late?

All Fall Down had me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end, my heart racing as the thrilling story reached its final, shocking denouement. M.J. Arlidge is a writer at the top of his game who always delivers the twists, turns and excitement I’ve come to expect from this fantastic series of books! Helen Grace is a fascinating character who I enjoy more and more with every new story. Never one to make life easy for herself, and with her personal relationships causing her issues both at home and at work, danger is a constant companion as Helen pushes herself as far as she possibly can to try to bring the case to a close.

A tense and exciting thriller that was every bit as good as I expected it to be, All Fall Down is a fantastic addition to M.J. Arlidge’s DI Helen Grace series. And with an ending that left me desperate for more, I can’t wait to find out where the author is going to take this fascinating and memorable character next!

Highly recommended.

Another cracker from MJ Arlidge. Is there nothing that Helen Grace can't do? I absolutely love this series and look forward to many more.

Another great Helen Grace read. I have enjoyed all this series and Helen is up to her usual antics in this book too. Not one for sitting behind a desk ordering her staff about Helen is always hands on in the chase to catch the villains. I am interested to see what will happen in the next book with her and Joseph Hudson. Things ended awkwardly with him and he’s not going to leave without a fight. Hopefully we won’t be kept waiting too long to find out what happens next between them.

I can’t believe that this is te ninth book in the series featuring DI Helen Grace. I am loving this series and this book certainly didn’t disappoint, I was hooked from the first chapter. The story centres around the abduction of five teenagers eight years ago. Four of them managed to escape after being mentally and physically abused but sadly one of the girls appeared to have been murdered by their abductor, Daniel King. It was believed that he had killed himself but his body was never found. The four remaining friends are managing to get on with their lives, they have grown apart and are still haunted with the memories of their ordeal. One of the survivors decides that she will write a memoir of what happened when they were captured by King. At the same time another one of the friends receives a telephone call telling him that he has only one hour to live and he is later found murdered. Is there a connection with King as there has been repeated sightings of him, and when others in the group starting receiving death threats DI Helen Grace and her team have a very complex case on their hands, Helen has had some very hair raising cases in the past and carries a lot of excess baggage with her. Her team support her but she has problems with Simmons, her boss. This book has everything, it has a fast paced plot and plenty of twists and turns. I can’t wait for the next book in the series.
Thanks to Netgalley and Orion for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

This was my first book by this author and I didn’t realise that it was part of a series, but this didn’t matter thankfully. It didn’t take away from any of the twists and turns in the book. An on the edge of your seat book!

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

“You have an hour to live.”

What would you do if you heard a voice on the phone telling you you’re about to die? I would probably freak out and stare at the clock for 59minutes!

Six words. That’s all it takes for M.J. Arlidge to get me hooked on the latest D.I. Grace novel! Well, technically, it began with the opening and my encounter with Justin Lanning. Interesting character, quite intriguing… and living one of my worst nightmares only three pages in!!! One word: elevator. My heart began pumping furiously and I believe from that point onward, it didn’t stop. It even increased with each dead body…

What a clever plot! What a freakish, absolutely fantastic plot! Justin’s death creates a ripple effect that only gets stronger as you keep reading. Hints of a past case pepper the start of the case and soon, the links are too obvious to ignore. I loved jumping from past to present through bits of the cold case, and snippets of a book retelling the horrors a group of friends went through… In this heat, I was glad for the cold sweat the novel ‘kindly’ offered me! I read every chapter as quickly and with the same intensity Helen Grace rides her engine! A killer who always seems to be one step ahead, leads that slip between the police’s fingers, time running out, a list of people possibly in danger… All Fall Down is an action-packed thriller leaving plenty of room for each character to grow, change (or try to), and feel multi-dimensional. I loved how conflicted my own emotions were throughout the book. Some characters got on my nerves, some irked me, some made me smile…

In the end, I managed to get the who, but not the how or why! It was both frustrating and exciting! I love having to dig and do the legwork to find answers. The motive fit the deaths extremely well, so well I almost pitied the culprit. My only reserve was on the who… or rather how the who managed to stay under the radar. I suspended my disbelief for the final part. It was filled with adrenaline and explosive enough so it didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the book.

This new addition to the series is terrifying and really good!

I love this series of books and love the short chapters that M J Arlidge is fond of.
D I Helen Grace is looking into a brutal murder and it seems the victim had 1 hours warning of his pending death by a telephone call he is also one of a group of teenagers that were tortured several years ago and escaped their abductor but is this relevant or just a coincidence. She will have to see if any of the other 'survivors 'have been contacted and added to the mix her colleague Charlie is heavily pregnant and Hudson is still part of the team but I just couldn't connect with him and felt that he was a distraction from the plot although not to the detriment of the overall story. This was a great book and I wasn't expecting the ending but I won't spoil it for you, you will have to read it for yourself.
Thank you to NetGalley for the copy of the book.

I read the first Helen Grace book, Eeny Meeny back in 2016 and since then I have been a huge fan. There’s something about the flawed detective that really intrigues me and I’d almost say it’s like meeting up with a friend each time.

In All Fall Down, Helen and her team are tasked with finding a murderer and it’s a task that seems to have the whole team baffled and that’s one of the things I love about these books, you never know what’s coming and only learn things along with the detective. Now you’d think after reading all the books that I’d have an idea of possibly where the author might go, I have learnt to think outside the box but I clearly just don’t think far enough outside the box because each time I am surprised. It’s such a good feeling though.

I didn’t find this book to be as fast paced as some of the others in the series but it’s still filled to the brim with tension and suspense. It’s possibly not quite as gruesome as the others either but it didn’t need to be, it had enough to make you feel on edge and let you feel the fear the victims are feeling.

The characters are still as great as ever, actually more so because the more I read about them and get to know them the more I like them. Helen’s had a tough time over the years so it would be nice to see a bit of happiness for her and Charlie is such a great character as well. They work well together and the friendship they have is great, they’re very different characters but they gel, they look out for each other and really have each other’s backs.

Now one character I absolutely cringe at is Emilia Garinita, the ruthless reporter. Every time she pops up in a book my heckles go up but that’s a good thing. She’s not there to be liked (I hope). She’s irritating and interfering and I don’t how Helen can put up with her half the time but I think she’d be a miss if she wasn’t in the books.

All Fall Down is another great addition to the series, it’s tense, suspenseful and it certainly kept me on my toes. I love how the tension builds basically from page one and it really doesn’t let go until the final conclusion. It gave me chills and had me turning the pages like my life depended on it. It’s so good and definitely can’t wait to read more.

D.I. Helen Grace and her team are back in another gripping installment of my favourite crime series. I had been eagerly anticipating this one for months and it was worth the wait.

There is a killer lurking in the shadows, stalking their prey. Their targets are the survivors of a group of schoolchildren who were abducted by Daniel King eight years ago. All but one of them got away but the killer was never caught and has been an illusive phantom ever since with no definitive sightings despite rumours over the years. Could he be back and looking to finish what he started all those years ago? And are the survivors telling the full story about what happened in that farmhouse? Are there secrets still waiting to be revealed?

M. J. Arlidge has done it again. I was hooked from the first page and immersed in the world he’s created, one that feels so familiar after eight previous books with Helen Grace and her team. The narrative uses multiple points of view and extracts from a book written by one of the survivors to slowly reveal the shocking truth about the killer they are hunting and the events eight years ago.

Arlidge has a knack for writing characters that feel real and jump from the pages. The ones in this book felt so real that I had to go back and check his previous books as it felt like I’d read the story of the kids in the farmhouse before. I hadn’t, he’s just that good at immersing you in their world. Helen is the kind of flawed, complex and compelling character I love and I’ve enjoyed following her journey over the course of this series. This time Arlidge explores the politics of policing through the lens of interpersonal relationships, with Helen and her colleague Joseph Hudson in a fledgling relationship when the story opens. Their dynamic shifts as the story progresses and I am excited to see where he takes things next for them after how the book ended.

Skillfully and cunningly crafted, Arlidge has once again written a dark, twisty, layered and tantalising thriller. I can’t wait to see what he has in store for this series in book ten.

Thanks to Orion Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I always thank my lucky, crime fiction stars when a new Helen Grace novel is released. Why? Well, quite simply her creator, M.J. Aldridge is one of the best thriller writers around. This twisty tale is a case in point. Past and present are inextricably linked with one, inevitable outcome: murder! The first aspect of the story revolves around some school kids getting lost during a Duke of Edinburgh hiking challenge. Cue the proverbial creepy fella in a deserted cottage who stumbles upon said kids. Then there is the ordeal the kids go through during the duration of the short stay, which is cursorily referred to as dark and traumatic in the early stages of the book. We know that one of the kids, Rachel, doesn't make it out alive... Fast forward nearly a decade and someone is killing the now adult survivors of the infamous events of the past. A book has been written by one of the survivors, bringing the past into the present and someone is picking off the 'kids' one by one - but not before informing the chosen victim that they have one hour to live... Yet, one mystery remains: the identity of the killer. Is it Daniel King, the original suspect in Rachel's murder, or, is something else going on? Well, you will have to pick up this stunning thriller to find out more. Taut, tense, dark and twisty - what more could you want from a crime thriller?

Have always enjoyed M.J.Arlidge books about the detective Helen Grace.
This one was not my favourite, found it sometimes disjointed and had to read read the page again.
Helen had to find a murderer who phoned his victims and told them they had one hour to live.
All the victims had something in common, they had been kidnapped and tortured when they were teenagers.
But the person who had kidnapped them had died so it was thought, so who was after the same people now that they had grown up.

A book with lots of promise that for me delivered on style but not so much on content. The back story is very cleverly told by introducing a book written by one of the characters but I found myself skim reading from about half way through.

The Helen Grace series features a strong female detective and a sick, twisted and depraved serial killer and All Fall Down can be read as a standalone.

In this ninth novel, DI Helen Grace is faced with a difficult case. Five teenagers were abducted and held at gunpoint fifteen years ago. Now adults, they have moved on with their lives, trying to put their horrendous ordeal behind them. The man responsible was believed to have been killed in a fire where he had held them captive. However, as the adults involved start dying one by one, police are soon questioning whether he did indeed die in the fire.

The plot is cunningly constructed, with excerpts from one character's recently-published account of the harrowing crime added to provide detailed background for the current raft of murders that involve the earlier crime's victims. The frequent changes of viewpoint kept the story effortlessly flowing at a comfortable pace. With buckets of suspense, the gritty story concludes with some unnerving, stomach-churning action and a twist. Now that I've had a glimpse into Helen Grace's life, I want to revisit! 😊

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Orion Publishing Group via NetGalley and this review is my own unbiased opinion.

I have read all the Helen Grace novels and it is great to be back reading her thrilling adventures. As always this one gripped me from the start, I always have trouble putting down the books and switching the light off. This will not disappoint.

Imagine you are about to leave the office and head for home, imagine you receive an anonymous call from someone saying “You have one hour to live”. Would you take it seriously or would you freak out? With the movie The Ring in mind, I would freak out and hide very far away, but when successful entrepreneur Justin Lanning receives the call, he gets into a car and goes home thinking that he will be safe there. Obviously that’s not the case and when other people start getting the same call, DI Helen Grace and her team know they have to find the killer before more people are murdered.

All Fall Down is a twisty, dark, and unpredictable novel. You think you have figure out the truth just to find out that, actually, you have not. The short chapters and the fast pace of the story make you turn page after page unable to put it down. I loved the “book within the book” structure as the author inserts extracts from a book that it’s central to the story. The tension is always high and the claustrophobic and chilling atmosphere gave me goose-bumps.

DI Helen Grace is a fantastic and complex character. She has never a moment of calm both in her personal and professional life, luckily she is surrounded by a fantastic team who support her, especially Charlie, who is struggling juggling motherhood and her job. I am not really fond of the new member of the team, DS Joseph Hudson, (I am not elaborating further about it to not spoil it) but I am looking forward to see how his story develops.

All Fall Down is an exciting and thrilling read that will make you hold your breath and it will keep you hooked from the first to the last page… a read not to miss!

“History is just one person’s side of the story.”

I have been devouring this series since the first book was published in 2014 and have reviewed numbers two and three on my blog previously – Pop Goes the Weasel and The Doll’s House . Although it isn’t necessary to read the books in order, I have loved watching the character of Helen Grace develop and learning more about her story as the series goes on. The first in the series is Eeny Meeny if you haven’t started the journey yet (I am so jealous if you haven’t!) – it’s only £3.99 on kindle at the moment which is a total bargain!

What the blurb says:

"You have one hour to live."

Those are the only words on the phone call. Then they hang up. Surely, a prank? A mistake? A wrong number? Anything but the chilling truth... That someone is watching, waiting, working to take your life in one hour.

But why?

The job of finding out falls to DI Helen Grace: a woman with a track record in hunting killers. However, this is a case where the killer seems to always be one step ahead of the police and the victims.

With no motive, no leads, no clues - nothing but pure fear - an hour can last a lifetime...

My thoughts:

This has to be one of Arlidge’s more chilling ideas – although I seem to think that every time I read one of his books! Can you imagine? When Justin receives this call, in the lift as he is leaving work one evening, he doesn’t know what to think. If it was just the words, perhaps he would have leaned towards the prank theory, but as the lift mysteriously stops whilst the caller delivers their message, he is understandably rattled. And rightly so…

When Callum gets this call, he is given an even more chilling message – if that’s possible: “You have one hour to live… unless, you’d like to trade your death for somebody else’s…” Helen quickly realises that the killer is targeting a particular group of people. This group were kidnapped as young adults doing their Duke of Edinburgh award at school and one did not survive the experience. The murders also coincide with one of this group, Maxine Pryce, publishing One Dark Night – their story of that time. Surely it all has to be linked? Could Daniel King, the perpetrator from all those years ago be back for a second try? If so, he’s only just beginning…

Our favourite characters are back to join Helen for her 9th outing. Grace Simmons reappears in this story as the boss who always has Helen’s back, although Helen is worried about her because she is ‘anxious and distracted…’ Could she be keeping secrets too? Emilia, the journalist everyone loves to hate is of course determined to be centre stage and appears to have found a weak link to exploit in Helen’s team. DC Charlie Brooks is massively pregnant and is torn between wanting to be at home with her husband and daughter, and being at the forefront of the action with Helen. There really is plenty of tension in this instalment from all angles.

This part of the story also sees Helen in a relationship – which, if you’ve read from the beginning, is a Big Step: “Finally, she had found someone who could keep up with her”. Unsurprisingly however, the path of true love is not destined to run smooth. Joseph is keeping secrets, and if there’s one thing Helen is good at, it’s sniffing out secrets.

This is yet another brilliantly plotted, twisty turny thriller from the master of the genre. I’ve said it before, but I do hope that we see DI Helen Grace on our screens at some point, and it goes without saying, but I do hope book number ten is not too far away!

“There is always a price to be paid for your actions…”

Links:
Amazon.
Goodreads.
Waterstones.

I would like to thank both Net Galley and Orion Publishing for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This has been a gripping and unputdownable read. I was pulled in from very early on with this one.
I am ashamed to say I've not ready anything by this author before. As a first read this has been a great read, I will instantly be adding more to my TBR.
I have adored the characters in this book, they have really made the book what it is and I have found all of them likeable and realistic.
This book has definitely kept me guessing and gripped. I have guessed the outcome incorrectly on more than one occasion and have found that this read has really got me thinking.
I have loved this from the very first page, a definite five stars from me.

It's been a while since the last Helen Grace book so I was delighted to see that at last there was another in the series.

It seems that after so many trials Helen is enjoying a bit of a break in her personal disasters. She is in a relationship(sort of!) & work is trundling along. An executive is found dead. He is one of a group of five who where held prisoner whilst seeking shelter after they got lost in fog. They were doing a Duke of Edinburgh award trek. Four of them escaped with their lives- one wasn't so lucky. This was many years ago but has been thrust to the fore as one of the group has published her account of events. When another of the group is found dead Helen & the team worry for those who remain.

Fast paced, it kept me reading & the ending has me already eagerly awaiting the next one. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book