Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘The Ideal Couple’, a lively Australian crime novel and the fourth in the series to feature Detective Veronika Pope.
Thanks to The Book Folks for inviting me onto the tour and for allowing me access to the book for review purposes. As always, opinions are entirely my own.
This book was published on 2nd October, 2023.
From the Publisher:
When detectives try to close a missing persons case, a small town’s twisted secrets begin to unravel…
A couple disappear in a region of the outback known for its gold mining. Some three years on, there is still no trace of them.
Detective Veronika Pope is handed the cold case. It’s cold only in name. When she turns up to the godforsaken town where the couple were last seen, the heat is sweltering; suspicion simmering.
The detectives stay in the same seedy hotel as the couple did. The townsfolk aren’t
welcoming. Nobody wants the cops probing into their affairs.
From what Pope can gather, the missing duo were the perfect couple. Loving. Happy
together. The picture of marital bliss.
Assuming a murder but missing a motive, the detectives do make progress. They might even find the bodies, as the trail is hot. Almost too hot to touch.
Pope is in serious danger of getting burned…
THE IDEAL COUPLE is the fourth title in the Cold Case Mysteries series featuring Veronika Pope by bestselling Australian author Anna Willett. The full list of books in this series is as
follows:
- THE WOMAN BEHIND HER
- THE FAMILY MAN
- THE NEWLYWED
- THE IDEAL COUPLE
My Review:
This is a new series for me, but it didn’t matter at all that I started with Book 4 – it works perfectly as a standalone, although I would now like to read more about Detective Veronika Pope.
The story follows Detective Veronika Pope as she takes on a cold case in the Australian outback. A devoted couple went missing in a small town and – three years on – the residents are keen to keep the past hidden. Veronika and her partner arrive in the town to a hostile reception from the inhabitants who are – by turns – creepy, secretive or aggressive. As they seek to uncover what happened to the loving couple once they left the seedy hotel on their last morning, it seems that Veronika is herself in danger…
I loved the setting of this novel. I don’t really know much about Australia and have never visited, so I enjoyed the claustrophobia of the small, dust-covered town and the often very odd residents. I got a real sense of the isolation of the community and the inhospitable outback conditions – all very exotic to a Brit!
Veronika is also an appealing heroine as she is tough and clever – she has to endure some pretty horrible things in the course of the novel, but comes through it all admirably. I liked that we were given the context of Veronika’s family background, in this case a son who I really wanted to slap some sense in to about his life choices!
The mystery is well-paced and had some unusual twists along the way – it’s fair to say that I fell for lots of red herrings and assumed that I knew where the book was going. I really didn’t and would make an appalling cold case detective, I think. There are elements of the police procedural in this, plus bits of crime thriller too – it’s an engaging read and one that I raced through.
Overall, I’d recommend this to those who enjoy claustrophobic crime novels with plenty of peril and menace. I had everything crossed for Veronika as she uncovered the town’s secrets and lies and would definitely look for more books in the series.
About the Author:
Anna Willett was born in the United Kingdom and emigrated to Australia with her family when she was six years old. She developed a love of reading thanks to her mother who introduced her to authors such as Stephen King, Mario Puzo and John Steinbeck to name just a few.
Although her reading tastes are eclectic, when it comes to writing, Anna is drawn to thrillers and dark tales. Anna writes about the shadowy side of the human experience and how ordinary people cope in extraordinary situations. Common tropes in Anna’s writing include people who get into trouble after they leave the safety of the city and the rupturing of domestic bubbles in which those who one is supposed to trust become a threat.
Anna lives in Western Australia with her husband and their two children. When she’s not writing or reading, she enjoy movies, dining out and bushwalking with her dogs.
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CHJXJ7W5/
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHJXJ7W5/
AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0CHJXJ7W5/
