The first S J Bolton book i have read, and i have found a new crime author i like! The book had me gripped from the first chapter where Lacey Flint finds a woman by Lacey's parked car, who has been stabbed and is bleeding to death.



The crimes that follow appear to have links to the historical crimes of Jack The Ripper - I normally do not like books that are linked to real crimes but I loved this book. It was high impact, fast moving, cleverly written and urging you to carry on reading just one more chapter!



The police team who are to investigate this crime, appear to not trust each other, which lead to problems with the investigation but there is a need by Lacey to solve the crime.



The book is full of twists and turns and I really enjoyed S J Bolton's writing style. Although the story is grisly in places, i did not find the writing and descriptions too gruesome. I hope DC Lacey Flint is a character who Bolton visits again soon.



I would recommend this to any crime lovers out there.



I received this book as part of the Amazon Vine program.

A second new-to-me mystery series! I'd read an earlier Bolton Sacrifice) and wasn't that impressed but this was much better.

Better how? The writing is tauter, and the Big Twist really was one. There are times when readers will think "oh, I know what Lacey's hiding" but, well... not really. That's always a good thing, when you're fooled until the end.

As for the plot, there seems to be a real rash of Ripper-itis going around. Within the past few months there was the BBC show Whitechapel, with a Ripper thread and Ripper Street is premiering tomorrow, and there are many mysteries (in print and on tv) that use him as a motif. In this case, there's DC Lacey Flint, trying to convince a victim to report a sex crime squad when a woman literally dies before her eyes, holding her hand, in a deserted car park. At once under suspicion and part of the investigation, Lacey tries to help the MIT solve the murder without giving away too many of her own secrets (or fall for the handsome-yet-snarly DI Joesbury).

Luckily there's more going on than just a copycat (another reason for the high rating) and the characters are nicely rounded. In some ways, making this Lacey's story is akin to the Lynley novels with Barbara Havers as narrator - or a Morse with Lewis as the lead storyteller. It's an interesting take, because the decisive actions that the underlings take can always be called into question by the superior officer.

While I can easily get the second in this series, I have to wait until June for the third. Sigh.