This is the third in the series to feature DI Grace Archer, following on from the brilliant ‘The Art of Death’ and ‘See No Evil’. I’ve followed this series – breathlessly, sometimes peeking through my fingers, with a pounding heart – from the beginning. This third instalment is another terrifying, gruesome and twisty tale.
Thanks to Compulsive Readers and Zaffre Books for my place on the blog tour and my copy of the book for review. As always, opinions are my own.
This book opens with a truly horrifying murder – a body left with a sinister ‘mask’ of tape and pen for his young son to find. Other murders follow, but DI Grace Archer and DS Harry Quinn struggle to find the connections between the victims. Meanwhile, Grace is battling with her own problems, not least a poorly relative and a dangerous entanglement with a local criminal family.
As in the previous books, Fennell is excellent at keeping the tension going – the murders are really shocking and the presence of younger family members in the house make them almost unbearable to read. I had to stop myself from reading this one at night because it was making me too tense to sleep! That said, the violence isn’t gratuitous and all makes sense with the final denouement.
I enjoyed being back in the world of DI Grace Archer and DS Harry Quinn. They make a brilliant pairing of Met detectives and I love the supportive relationship they have. Although DI Grace Archer is tough and independent, it’s really heartening to see the characters around her who care for her – and I especially loved the other inhabitants of Harry’s block of flats who keep an eye on her… There’s some great touches of humour in there to lighten the grimness of the crimes!
As always, I totally failed to see where the story was going – the ending was a surprise and worked well in explaining the killings. There’s a good pace to the novel too – it all started to come together in a race against time that kept me turning the pages.
My least favourite element of the story was the criminal underworld strand – while adding extra peril for DI Archer, I was glad that there was some resolution in this novel. I much preferred the focus on the killer and the investigations around the murders – although the two story elements worked well together and made sense.
Although this is the third book in the series, I think it would make sense as a standalone. The only thing readers really need to know is that there is a complex history between Grace Archer and the criminal White family. This is explained in the novel, and there are a few references to the previous cases.
I’d recommend this to anyone who has enjoyed the previous books in the series, or fans of other excellent, high-concept police procedurals such as M W Craven or Cara Hunter. Just make sure you clear your diary as you won’t want to put this down!
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