Interesting title, for a standard by the book police procedural until it’s more like a serial killer than a one off. Detectives are challenged by the evidence and the continued brutality.

Very engaging thriller, will be reading more from this series that I was unaware of until now
Thanks to NetGalley, the editor and the author for the opportunity to access this copy.

A young father is stabbed on his own doorstep in East London and D.I Matthew Denning and D.S Milly Fisher are given the case to solve the murder. Was this mistaken identity as there seemed no apparent reason for his murder.

The story develops from here and before they know it they are hunting down a possible serial killer?

I thought this was a debut novel, in which case I would have understood or excused some of the poor / weak writing. You would not want these detectives in charge of any case, they were useless. It seemed lazy to stick a stereotypical support character of a male loud mouth chauvinistic copper in the mix too.

In my opinion it felt lazy and poorly written, which is a huge shame as the storyline was a decent one.

I will not revisit this author. I give this 2/5.

This was a great crime drama! My first read by this author but im hoping for more books like this! 5 stars

An excellent thriller well paced with good characters. Though this is the fifth book in the series you don't have to read the earlier novels though I will be hunting them out. This is a review audiobook I received from Bookoutre and Netgalley. The narrator does an excellent job and I Would listen to this narrator again.

This is my first encounter with DI Denning and DS Fisher although I note that this is the fifth book in the series. There were clear references in the book to events in the couple's past but I didn't feel that not having read other books in the series was a problem - this was a good standalone mystery. For me though, unfortunately, that was all it was - good. The story itself was well-designed, although I worked out who the murderer was long before Denning and Fisher did and spent the last portion of the book just waiting for them to twig. For me the real issue, and the reason that I didn't give this a higher score was that it just felt rather repetitive at times and like there could have been closer proof reading to avoid telling us the same information more than once. Egs that come to mind here specifically are when we are told several times about Molly thinking about the first victim's flat as a potential home because the rent is cheap and it's not a bad area. It wasn't directly relevant to the unravelling of the mystery and whilst it was fine to tell us once or even twice that Molly wanted out of the spare room she was in, this felt overdone - like it was a pointed comment on the state of prices in the London rental market.

I have not read any of the other books in the series by this author but that did not seem to impact upon the ablity to read/listen to and enjoy the story. I did think it was really obvious who the culprit was as soon as they emerged, although the reasons for this were not clear at the time. For that reason I would mark it down slightly but overall, a good read and I would read others in the series.

Karen was stabbed when he answered the door and this is followed up with multiple more stabbings. We follow British detectives as they work the case trying to find who committed the crime. This was the first time I have read a British crime novel. It was interesting to see how the murder solving process differs from the US. (obviously fictional differences). This book is number five in a series that follows detectives D.I. Denning and D.S. Fisher as they solve crime. If you like an in-depth murder, thriller, please, detective, or crime novel then this is a book for you. I listened to it via Audible and I loved the narration! This would be a book I would recommend.

Narrated by Julie Maisey ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Perfect voice for narrating
Story by Graeme Hampton ⭐⭐⭐

"Shame the Devil" by Graeme Hampton receives a solid three-star rating from me. With a compelling premise, the narrative maintains a satisfying pace throughout. This engaging whodunit successfully kept me in suspense, leaving me guessing right up until the final pages.

A great story with believable characters, fantastic that it is set in London - the locale was captured perfectly. The narration was excellent, a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook. I've never read anything by this author before, and realize that it's from a series with the same two main detectives (Matt Denning and Molly Fisher). The story is about these detectives, who are part of MIT (Murder Investigation Team) who are tasked with finding out who killed (stabbed to death in his own doorway) a man named Kieran Judd. They are trying to put the pieces together on the murder and figure out if Mr. Judd was the intended target, or if it was a case of "mistaken identity". Before they can start making sense of the case and before they have a chance to really find any evidence, another stabbing occurs. Then another. They now have 3 dead bodies on their hands and are in a frantic race to find the killer all while feeling pressure from above. They have to figure out the connection, if there is one, between the 3 victims. Once they finally realize how the 3 murder victims are linked, they are trying hard to keep another possible victim safe as they may be next. The story is good and really kept me guessing until closer to the end. Although, as soon as a certain person was introduced, I suspected they would turn out to be the killer and I was correct. But that didn't take away from the outcome for me. I liked the end of the story and I found the author's way of wrapping it all up was good. I am planning on going back to check out any other books in this series as I found the two main characters to be likeable. The narrator was good and had a good pace as well as good tone and effectively changed the pitch etc enough with each character to make it easy enough to tell when it was a different character speaking. I love listening to narrators with British accents and for that reason, could listen to her all day! She even did a great Scottish accent, which I found impressive. She could go from British accent to Scottish accent and back with no difficulty. I think this book worked very well as an audiobook for these reasons. It would have read well in book form too I think, since the story was good enough to hold my attention.

I hadn't realised that this was book 5 in a series. It normally bothers me not to read books in order, but I didn't have time to catch up, so listened to this as a standalone.

When a young father is stabbed to death on his front doorstep in East London, police can't believe that he was the intended target as he was so well liked.
D.I. Matthew Denning and D.S. Molly Fisher are quickly thrown into an investigation with no leads to follow … and when the body of respectable schoolteacher Susan Elliot is discovered, her murder mirroring that of Kieran’s, the case gets even more complex.
Denning and Fisher uncover a dark secret linking the two victims and are sent spiralling into an investigation in which exposing the truth will bring them directly into the sights of a killer with nothing to lose.

I enjoyed this story and felt that it worked well without me having any prior knowledge of any of the characters. I was quickly drawn into the story and became invested in finding out why seemingly innocent and likeable victims were being murdered.

The narrator was good and I listened to the book very quickly.

My thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for sending me this ARC in return for an honest review.

This audio book is a police investigatory crime thriller. I hadn’t read or listened to the other books in this series. That was fine, but listening suggests to me there is plenty more to come from the professional and personal lives of the Police characters in the story. There are a lot of clues to the culprit, that once revealed meant I spent a lot of time thinking the Police couldn’t be this naive. So ultimately, not perfect but all the same a worthwhile listen. Thank you to Saga Egmont Publishers and NetGalley for the audio ARC, the views expressed are all mine, freely given:

When Kieran Judd is stabbed to death on the doorstep of his Stratford flat, with no obvious reason the police are soon trying to get to the bottom of who the murder suspect could be. Soon a school teacher is murdered in an eerily similar manner, are these murders connected somehow? The police are trying all avenues of inquiry to work out how they could be linked, but just not fast enough.

Shame the Devil is the 5th in the D.I. Denning and D.S. Fisher Series. I didn’t realise this when I started, but it works well as a standalone. This is police procedural and building crime thriller, based around London. DI Matthew Denning is part of East London Major Investigation Team and Molly Fisher is in the Murder Squad as one of the main investigators.


The story was good but nothing really stood out to me in particular, it was an entertaining read and the narrator was good.

3.5 rounded up

Thank you NetGalley and Graeme Hampton for this ARC audio.

I had not read any books in this series before listening to Shame the Devil but that didn’t stop my enjoyment in it. Such a good mystery! I loved it!

This was definitely a story full of twists but it wasn’t one that worked very well for me. I wonder if I’d read the first four in the series before reading this that I may have been more invested in the story and the characters.

I finished this 10 days ago and already can only remember a few things about the story. It was fine but not one that wow’d me.

Thank you Saga Egmont Audio for the alc in exchange for an honest review.

Fantastic audio. I was totally immersed into this book. Well written book and a great plot. Highly recommend it.
It does read well as a stand-alone but now I want to read all of the books in this series.

I very much enjoyed this police procedure crime tale. The characters were very believable and although I guessed the culprit a while before the end it still held my interest.
Never realised it was one in a series so obviously it really didn’t matter. I would certainly read/ listen to this author again.
The narrator had a great vocal range so very easy to work out who was ‘ speaking’.

I downloaded this police procedural from NetGalley and really enjoyed it - it delivered exactly what I expected, with the added bonus of some strong female lead and supporting characters.

It’s the first I’ve read in this series and I will loop round and read the earlier books now.

The only reason it’s a 4-star rather than a 5-star read is that the murderer is obvious from the first time we meet them. There’s enough “whydunnit” to keep the interest, though.

Book Title: Shame the Devil
Series: D.I. Denning and D.S. Fisher Book #5
Author: Graeme Hampton
Narrator: Julie Maisey
Publisher: Saga Edmond Audio
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Audiobook Pub Date: August 10, 2023
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
Pages: 301

Kieran Judd, is stabbed to death on his front doorstep in East London, Kieran is a young father of little eighteen month Arthur. He was a well-liked sports coach – his employer states he was a model employee, popular with staff as well as customers. His partner Cassy states he was a gentle kind loving family man. She has no idea why someone would kill him..
DI Matthew Denning and DS Molly Fisher are investigating but have no leads to follow.
Next Susan Elliot a schoolteacher is killed the same way as Kieran's.
Denning and Fisher are now faced with two murders with no obvious motive,

I liked the ending it wasn't really a cliffhanger but know that it is setting me up for the next in this series.

Want to thank NetGalley and Saga Edmond Audio for this audiobook.
Audiobook Publishing Date scheduled for August 10, 2023.