Expected
publication: 20 September 2017
My
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟1/2
Book Description (Goodreads):
When a battered suitcase containing the dismembered body of
a young man washes up on the shore of the river Thames, Detective Erika Foster
is shocked. She’s worked on some terrifying cases but never seen anything like
this before.
As Erika and her team set to work, she makes the link with another victim – the body of a young woman dumped in an identical suitcase two weeks ago.
Erika quickly realises she’s on the trail of a serial killer who’s already made their next move. Yet just as Erika starts to make headway with the investigation, she is the victim of a brutal attack.
But nothing will stop Erika. As the body count rises, the twin daughters of her colleague Commander Marsh are abducted, and the stakes are higher than ever before. Can Erika save the lives of two innocent children before it’s too late? She’s running out of time and about to make a disturbing discovery…there’s more than one killer.
As Erika and her team set to work, she makes the link with another victim – the body of a young woman dumped in an identical suitcase two weeks ago.
Erika quickly realises she’s on the trail of a serial killer who’s already made their next move. Yet just as Erika starts to make headway with the investigation, she is the victim of a brutal attack.
But nothing will stop Erika. As the body count rises, the twin daughters of her colleague Commander Marsh are abducted, and the stakes are higher than ever before. Can Erika save the lives of two innocent children before it’s too late? She’s running out of time and about to make a disturbing discovery…there’s more than one killer.
My musings:
I’ve been a big fan of the Erika Foster series from the
start, and was duly excited to see that a fifth book is coming out, doing my
usual happy dance around the kitchen when I got the approval for an ARC from
Netgalley. I’m not sure what it is exactly that makes Erika such a stand-out
character for me, but I find the series totally addictive! Bryndza has a very
direct, “no-frills” writing style that works well for the genre and really
appeals to me. The short chapters are filled with action and move the story
along at a good pace. Plus, I have grown very fond of the team of detectives
and forensic scientists that have been featuring alongside Erika, eagerly
following their side stories.
As usual, Bryndza has given Erika a chilling and challenging
case to solve, which she approaches in her usual “give-it-all” manner,
determined to find the killer/s before the body count mounts. Parts of the book
are narrated from the perpetrators’ POV, and I must admit that on this occasion
this did not work as well for me than in previous novels, especially Nina’s
diary entries. The trouble I have with most fictional diaries is that they
rarely read like a real-life diary, and tend to slow the story down with lots
of internal dialogue. Personally, I thought that this distracted me from the
main story and pushed Erika and her team into the background. I felt that I was
not invested enough in Nina’s story to care about her most intimate thoughts, which
made the book flag a bit for me in the middle. I would have much preferred to be
more involved in Erika’s investigation and problem solving, which was
overshadowed by the story of the two perpetrators and always being a few steps
ahead of the police. This is purely a personal preference and will probably not
bother other readers, but I didn’t feel that Cold Blood offered the same
thrilling cat-and-mouse game as previous books. I am also not a big fan of the
theme of detectives becoming targets, finding it overused and often quite
far-fetched. That said, once the story picked up pace in the last quarter of
the book, there was plenty of action to make up for the short lull, and I loved
the tense and thrilling finale.
Summary:
Whilst Book 5 was not my favourite instalment in the Erika
Foster series, it features a chilling murder case, a ruthless perpetrator and
plenty of action, and I am sure that many readers will love it. I am still a
big fan of the series and am looking forward to Erika’s next case - I hope that
she will finally find a bit more happiness in her personal life!
Thank
you to Netgalley and Bookouture for the free electronic copy of this novel and
for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
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