Simon McCleave

It’s good to be back on Anglesey with DI Laura Hart. Anglesey is usually a bastion of peace and harmony, but on this visit a rampant serial killer, the Anglesey Ripper, is on the loose. Laura and the team are pulling out the all the stops to try and catch them before they kill again.

As with all Simon McCleave books this is a fast-actioned thriller with plenty of action set in a wonderful part of the world. Whilst it is the third book of a series it can be read as a standalone but I feel you will get more of out of it if you have read the others, as it does bring in more along Laura’s timeline and the incidents surrounding her husband’s death some years before.

As the story develops and the manhunt builds, you get a real flavour for the island nature of Anglesey and how this impacts on criminals if they are trying to escape the police. There is definitely plenty of action in this book with a killer who is willing to take whatever action he needs to in order to escape the police and get the buzz from killing. You soon are hooked in the book and just don’t want to put this excellently written book down; this is helped by some excellent characters.

A five star read for me and I am happy to recommend it to all crime fans out there, or people that want more books set in Wales. Even better if you start with the first book in the series. I now wait with baited breath for the next book, especially given the ending of this book.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.… (mehr)

Ruth Hunter is tired of solving crimes in London, so she transfers to a Northern Wales police unit. On her first day, she's put in charge of a murder investigation.
The author tries to give some interesting background to Ruth and her sidekick Nick. Ruth is a lesbian, and her partner Sarah mysteriously disappeared four years earlier. Nick is an alcoholic, and Mr. McCleave goes into a lot of detail about this. I'm not qualified to judge, but it did seem odd to me that Nick tries to wean himself off by measuring his alcohol count and taking drugs. Maybe that's a viable treatment in Wales, but the author does spend a lot of time on it.
The story itself was good, veering from suspect to suspect, grounded by forensic work and logical police work. The ending is a bit of a twist that I didn't see coming, though there did seem to be a plot hole unless my knowledge of Welsh law is lacking (how is underage sex at age 14 not immediately classified as rape?).
Unlike other reviewers, I enjoyed the historical and mythological references. I didn't care for the constant musical references and travelogues that felt like padding. The action sequences were written well, but often there was too much repetitive telling - Ruth rolled down the window to let her smoke out. Or every sentence in a paragraph starting with "She" or "He." It felt like a good first effort but ultimately not a series I want to continue.… (mehr)