Graham Bartlett has been a ride or die author for me ever since I read the first book in the Jo Howe series, Bad for Good, back in 2022. I have been absolutely chomping at the bit to read City on Fire and it did not let me down.

One of my favourite things about the character of Jo Howe is that she is not the woman who has it all, but neither does she have an addiction – or similar – that she must battle against. She makes mistakes, pisses off the people she loves and is by no means the perfect mother, but, like most of us, her heart is in the right place. Although this sounds like most of us, I find very few writers get it right. Graham, on the other hand, nails it.

Graham's writing style means this is the kind of book that propels you along and if you do manage to put it down, it's never far from your mind. I read City on Fire in two days, which I now realise was a mistake because I'm going to have to wait an AGE for book number four!.

I don't often read police procedurals, especially not series, but I find Graham has a unique voice and style that brings something new to the genre.

#CityonFire #NetGalley The third in the Jo Howe series but perfectly capable of being read as a stand alone. Completely gripping and jam packed with action, this book is a real page turner. At one point I found myself to be quite alarmed that one man with the right contacts could cause such widespread mayhem and bring the city to its knees. quite moving and poignant at times, I look forward to reading more in this series and from this author.

Having read the first two books in this series I was excited to be given the opportunity to read this book. Another great instalment to the series. When you are reading a police procedural, thriller book by the ex chief superintendent of Brighton police you know that you are going to get realistic, lived experiences. I must admit as I was reading this book I did wonder if some of the scenes were a little far-fetched and just there to provide action scenes but having read the acknowledgments it became clear that similar things have happened and we really are living in a weird and worrying world. On reflection of the book one thing that got to me was the emotion within the book. The end scenes really got to me. Many authors try to build tension and emotion but this author has lived and breathed it, and his writing style really brings out the emotions of the story and the characters.
It really is a good read with lots of action, intrigue and questions that do get answered through the telling of the book. If you enjoy UK crime and police procedurals then this is definitely a book for you.
Many thanks to Allison & Busby, NetGalley, and the author for providing me with a free electronic copy of the book in return for a honest and unbiased review.
The book is published on the 21st March and will be available in various formats. Get those orders in early

I would like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of this book. This is the third book featuring Jo Howe and once again it was brilliant, the story was great and covered some very hard to read subjects, but as always I finished the book knowing that I had learnt something new. I will be recommending this book to everyone I know.

City on fire is book three in the DS Jo Howe series and what a brilliant series this is. This book is the author’s best one yet.
After the death of her sister, Chief Superintendent Jo Howes is heading Operation Eradicate. A scheme to getting rid of drug crime from the streets of Brighton and Hove. But local Businessman Sir Ben Parsons who produces a synthetic drug to help drug addicts is not happy on the idea and uses his powers to target Jo and get the operation stopped.
Like the other books in this series this is a fast paced, heart stopping story and I enjoyed every minute of it. It is well written; you can tell how much experience the author has by the quality of his writing. A story a bribery and police corruption to achieve their own goal. I like the character of the protagonist Jo Howe. What ever is going on in her life, it still won’t stop her to get justice and the criminals off the streets. I highly recommend this. 5 stars .

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my early read of the third book in the Chief Superintendent Jo Howe series.

OMG, Graham has certainly written another roller-coaster of a book!! The plot revolves around a police operation called Op Eradicate to rid drugs of the city streets, and the implications of Jo and her team trying to help with removing the supply of drugs on Brighton's streets, and the people are paramount in being saved. The characters are well written and so believable! No spoilers but I found the book to be riveting and very true to life. Graham has used his own experience as a police officer with his knowledge of police procedures. The book is dark, gritty and unputdownable!I love how Brighton and the various towns are used within this book. I can see the City in my mind. I will certainly recommend this book!

I'd always thought I might like to visit Brighton one day ... Having read book three in Graham Bartlett's Jo Howe series, I don't think I'm going out on a limb to suggest the plots will not be used in any City Council promo literature any time soon.😳 All joking, and potentially poor trip advisor ratings aside, for all he has failed in creating a tourism boom, Mr B has more than made up for it with a gripping, tense, action packed crime novel that I absolutely loved. Afterall, that's the bit I'm really here for.

With City on Fire the author turns his attention to the war on illegal drugs. By his own admission, the idea for Jo Howe's 'Operation Eradicate' is taken from a similar initiative that Graham Bartlett ran when he was the big chief with Brighton & Hove police. It sees Jo and her team focusing on reducing crime in the area by providing support and treatment to drug users in the city, rather than just punitive measures which are more likely to see them reoffend. Needless to say, not everyone is behind this initiative, dealers least of all, but, as it turns out, there are far more people campaigning against Jo than acting in support of her, and those with a vested interest in seeing the programme fail come from all walks of life. Now, readers who have been with the series from the start will know that there have been a few 'issues' with corruption in the past, and it seems the manipulation, misdirection and downright lawlessness are far from over. But it is set to get really personal for Jo and mistakes from the past see her outcast and alone, and set to push her, and her family, to the very edge.

This is a bit of an addictive read, and there is no pun intended there given the subject matter. Fast paced, and laced with threat and subterfuge, it had me hooked from the very beginning. You get that sense from the very start that things are just a little off kilter, but just how far off remains to be seen. We don't to wait long, one of the big shocks happening very early on in the book and driving all of the determination that is shown by Jo and her supporters. There are two areas of focus - making sure that Operation Eradicate succeeds, and trying to pin down those who are trying to undermine it. But as we soon learn, there is a challenge to Jo's legacy from very close to home, a delicate and unfortunate situation that we understand as readers much better than Jo can at first. It's an unexpected conflict but with far reaching consequences.

The author has really but Jo, and the city, through the ringer this time around. I've got to admit there were times, much like for Jo, where I was starting to think that her situation was hopeless. I trusted Mr B though - he's far too nice a person to be that mean ... I hoped. But it did give me that constant sense of threat and pressure and made the it a really pacy book to read. The bad guys were utterly loathsome, their actions contemptible, but sadly all too believable. Exactly the kind of people who put their own fortune ahead of all others, although not without the odd surprising revelation on the home front for them too. But it was seeing Jo pushed to the limit, feeling abandoned by even her closest allies, which really stoke the fires. My reading speed increased the closer I got to the very dramatic conclusion, desperate as I was to understand if there was any way back from the precipice for Jo and wanting to be certain that, once again she was going to get her man. Or men ... after all she endures this time around, she really did deserve it.

There are some really emotional moments in this book. Lump in the throat scenes and heart thumping tension which held my attention. I can of forgive the author for where he took the book as it was in keeping with the book. Just about at least. If you thought things had been tricky before , in terms of the personal toll for Jo, this really does eclipse them both. Definitely the best, and most intense, book yet . But it also leaves me eager to see what the author is going to serve up next because I cannot wait to read it. Most certainly recommended.

⭐️ 5 ⭐️

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

City on Fire is the third book in the Chief Superintendent Jo Howe crime thriller series set in (and around) Brighton. I’ve read the previous books, Bad for Good and Force of Hate, both excellent reads; in fact, Force of Hate was one of my top reads of 2023.
 
City on Fire can easily be read as a standalone, but I'd still recommend reading the previous two first just for the finer details of the series.
 
Bartlett has given us another brilliantly crafted read with knowledgeable attention to detail; it’s gritty, dark, and doesn’t pull any punches. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to see how it would all pan out.
 
Overall, an excellent crime thriller/procedural. An immersive, addictive read, well worthy of five stars.
 
Already looking forward to book 4!

What a superb series this is, and it just gets better and better. Excellent writing, intriguing characters and tight plotting, all backed up by Graham Bartlett's first hand knowledge of the workings of a police force. Jo Howe is always put through the wringer, and in this case it is particularly personal. Drug trafficking, people smuggling and corruption in positions of authority are just a few of the topical themes which make this tense and terrific novel a must-read.

City on Fire is the third book in the DS Jo Howe series and whilst it does stretch credibility and procedural in some places it is a rollicking good read and highly recommended.

I have read previous Brighton based crime novels by this author and always find them totally believable - often shocking though. This is no exception as the drug scene of what some still say is the drug capital on the coast. Nothing is held back in the plot twists which are often tense and gruesome.
Here we also see an undercurrent of corruption oozing through both the police, the health authorities and of course to politicians.
Jo Howe is the already suffering Superintendent on the Sussex Force whose idea of Operation Eradicate to move drug users off the streets with more treatment than threats of jail is ruffling a few feathers.
She also this time has personal problems after the grief of the death of her younger sister of drugs overdose and her husband Darren, a journalist, who also find himself at the mercy of people out to destroy his job and homelife.
Bartlett is an advisor to bestselling crime author Peter James and that flavour of taut tension and fear are evoked with both these writers. As an ex policeman Bartlett too knows, that the work today is far scarier on the beat in Brighton that it has ever been.
Disturbing but dynamic drama set in everyone's favourite coastal resort.

Book 3 in the Chief Superintendent Jo Howe series. I loved Graham’s first two books in this series and thought this was every bit as good. Jo is behind Operation Eradicate an initiative to tackle drug crime deaths in Brighton & Hove. However, not everyone is happy with this particularly Sir Ben Parsons. What ensues is Sir Bens attempt to discredit this initiative and bring down Jo and the people she loves most in the process and he will stop at nothing to achieve his aim. As I’m married to someone from Brighton I really enjoy being able to envisage a lot of the places mentioned in the novel. Also, crime and police procedural novels are my favourite genre so this fitted the bill perfectly. Thanks to NetGalley and Graham for an advanced copy of this book

Jo Howe is the Chief Superintendent who is leading Operation Eradicate in order to rid Brighton of its drugs’ scourge. Her approach is innovative aiming to help addicts but obviously the drug dealers don’t like this as well as bog pharma who have developed an opiate substitute. A series of incidents target her team threatening law and order. Bartlett offers an authentic and realistic story of how what should be a positive community initiative turns into a scandal involving the highest echelons of so-called respectability. This is written from inside knowledge and experience- another cracker from Graham.

Just when you think it couldn’t get any better, Bartlett comes along and delivers this masterpiece. Once again Jo Howe is putting everything on the line to make Brighton a better place. The usual suspects are back to help and support Jo, but this time it seems everyone that Jo loves are in danger. With more twists and turns than you can ever see coming this is a must read.

Social realism or speculative fiction?

(spoiler-free review) Having read the author’s two previous novels in the Jo Howe series, I approached ‘City on Fire’ with expectations from a writer who writes police procedurals from the perspective of someone who spent thirty years in uniform rising to become commander of Brighton’s police force.

These expectations include an authentic sense of policing. In previous work, the author tackles a big social issue. In ‘Force of Hate’ he examined how a police force functions (or is compromised) by the rise of a far-right political party within local government. This is a challenging idea when you propose a situation which currently might not seem feasible but might become a reality in the not-too-distant future.

In this novel, the author looks at how Big Pharma might seek to compromise and undermine a police force’s initiative to tackle drug dealing through rehabilitation. This is interesting, original and educational in helping the general public understand how a strategy of weaning addicts away from street drugs and onto a controlled dispensation of substitute drugs has the effect of making the dealers surplus to the addicts needs.

Within this scenario, we see our protagonist, Chief Superintendent Jo Howe, being forced to stand by her strategy against the machinations of antagonist, Sir Ben Parsons, the epitome of Big Pharma who schemes to undermine her. We see Sir Ben and his henchman, Tony Evans, destabilise the neighbourhood to the extent that most of the police force are cowed into going off sick or simply not turning up for duty. This scenario had the sense of a nightmare fantasy and I wondered if the author had departed from the realism of the police procedural into a speculative dystopian type of fiction. The effect of police and support services being shut down means that the strategy crumbles and allows hard street drugs back onto the streets, thus fuelling addiction and ensuring a big customer base for Sir Ben’s synthetic substitute. There’s also a rather clunky sub-plot in which Jo Howe’s husband is also compromised. The novel builds to a climax in which are events become completely disastrous.

But here's the problem. The author isn’t quite sure what sort of novel he’s writing. Is he writing a piece of social realism? If so, should he then be using the creative non-fiction genre? Or is he writing speculative or even fantasy fiction in which a civic infrastructure is undermined by scheming evil villains. To what extent should the realism give way to melodrama? A final scene between Jo Howe and the evil Sir Ben could have come out of a Victorian penny dreadful. The novel tried to blend realism, speculative fiction and melodrama and they don’t sit well together.

However, although this novel didn’t work well on the page, I can see it making an amazing piece of TV drama. Perhaps I expect a more reasoned and credible plotting on the page whereas with TV, as we’ve seen with shows such as ‘Line of Duty’, it’s easier to accept an outlandish plot.

So perhaps the author’s agent should be promoting this series of novels to the TV production companies. If they get filmed, I’ll certainly be watching.

My thanks go to NetGalley for making available a pre-publication copy so that I may make an honest review.

City on Fire is the third in the Jo Howe series, written by the Ex Chief Superintendent Graham Bartlett. Graham's style of writing is gripping from the outset. Whilst I appreciate his books as I know the Brighton and Hove area well, his descriptive style allows the reader to visualise exactly the area in which the book is set.

Interestingly the drug reduction policy the book centres around was an actual policy adopted by the writer in his policing days. This book gives a real insight into the criminal underworld, organised crime on a large scale, the relationships between officers and their families and the genuine sacrifices people make.

I have read the two previous books prior to this one, and was privileged to be able to write and offer feedback on this book.

All the stars for 'City on Fire'. The third Jo Howe book is every bit as nail-biting and tense as Graham Bartlett's previous two crime thrillers, all set in a Brighton police service that has been cut to the bone time and time again.

In 'City on Fire' DS Jo Howe is spearheading an innovative way of dealing with the drugs epidemic sweeping the city, by working with support agencies to provide treatment for addicts, in a bid to stem the demand for illegal drugs. Jo has her own personal reasons for wanting to achieve this aim, following the sad loss of her sister.

As an aside, I was fascinated to learn that Operation Eradicate mirrored work that Graham Bartlett himself had led when he was in charge of Brighton police.

Not everyone is in support of the aims of Operation Eradicate. There are those who think that all criminals are criminals and should be locked up rather than handed 'cushy treatments', spurred on by certain media sources shouting loudly; and of course businesses who have a vested interest in keeping the drugs market buoyant are not happy to see their market shrinking in front of their eyes.

Local businessman Sir Ben Parsons owns a company that makes synthetic heroin, used to ease addicts off the illegal drugs - but fewer addicts mean less demand for his substitute, and that's not something he is at all happy about.

Sir Ben will do anything to derail the operation, however illegal it might be; his methods are often crude but effective and he has fingers in all of the relevant pies to achieve his aims. His status gives him connections throughout the business and third sector community and he can be very persuasive. He may even be linked to some of those media stories that I mentioned earlier.

Pitted against him (but not knowing who her enemy is) is DS Jo Howe whose passion and belief that she is doing the right thing drives her relentlessly, at the risk of costing her everything. But as the pressure piles up on Jo, her team and the police force, will she be able to keep the operation running and succeeding?

I had no idea how the plot was going to get resolved; as the drama kept ramping up and up, my heart was in my mouth, I was so nervous and tense for Jo and her team. Graham Bartlett is an auto-buy and auto-read (and such a lovely person in real life!). I always know I am going to be blown away by the plots and the scenarios that he conjures up, expertly told every time.

The 3rd book in the Jo Howe series set in Brighton.For me this was the best book so far,a proper police crime procedural thriller that was great from beginning to end with an authentic plot that made for a cracking read.Thanks to Netgalley and Allison and Busby for the ARC.

The third in this well-written series featuring Detective Superintendent Jo Howe. This is a gritty and at times scary story. Jo's campaign to deal with drug addicts in Brighton in a compassionate manner is under attack. Police officers are being threatened, attacked and killed. Jo's own family is also being targeted. There is corruption at high levels and it looks like Jo is faced with an impossible situation.
This is a tense thrilling read, a real page-turner. Highly recommended.

I was excited to get the opportunity to read Graham Bartlett’s new book - the third in the Jo Howe police series. Like the first two books, City on Fire gives us goodies and baddies we can love and hate, corruption and infiltration at the heart of the establishment, and a hero to cheer on. It’s also set in Brighton and Hove, which is always a winner for me.
Bartlett’s understanding of the city, Sussex police and the multi-agency context of modern policing is exceptional and adds to the depth of the story.
I have enjoyed all the books, but I think this one has the edge for me. City on Fire can be read as a stand alone novel, but why not read all three while you are at it. You won’t regret it.