Book 9 in the DI Helen Grace series. "You have one hour to live." These are the only words on the phone call to Justin Lanning as he takes the elevator down from his office to the car that takes him home every day. And, that is just the start of this fast paced book about the victims of a crime that happened in their past. They were able to get away from that killer. DI Grace and her team have their work cut out for them! On to book 10! ( )

DI Helen Grace and her team are on the trail of a serial killer in Southampton. The killer telephones each victim telling them they only have one hour to live and delivers on that threat. Also, each victim was the subject of a mass kidnapping when they were children. Why choose these victims and how is the killer able to evade the police and commit these crimes?

This series is improving with age. There are plenty of plot twists and red herrings to keep the reader guessing. The police characters are very believable and it is good that we see several team members developing leads and contributing to the investigation. I still think Helen Grace is over emotional and under professional for my taste, but this is a good story and very well told. ( )

Good read but not up to the Helen Grace standard ( )

M.J. Arlidge hits one out of the ballpark with this 9th in the DI Helen Grace series (one of my favorite thriller series ever). I could not put this book down!

"You have one hour to live" is all the victim hears, and then the killer keeps his promise. When a second victim is murdered with the same m.o., Helen and her team realize they have a serial killer on the loose. What do these victims have in common? What could be the motive for the killings?

Arlidge's trademark very short chapters work to keep the plot moving. And this book goes at a very fast pace. Lots of action, continuous plot development, good character development, plenty of red herrings. DS Joseph Hudson - who was a new character in book #8 - is more fleshed out in this book, and I honestly don't know what to think about him. He appears to be a very complex person, and I'm curious to see if the next book will let us have a deeper look into who he is. DS Charlie Brooks plays a smaller role in this book, but it's obvious why, as soon as she shows up; she still gets plenty of character development, though. That's one of the things I really like about this series; Arlidge never skimps on the character development, and that's what makes the books work -- because it makes the reader care about the characters. Even Helen is trying to understand herself and change herself for the better. Fortunately, she's still the badass that I love.

Oddly enough, this book had quite a few typos in it, as if the editing job was not complete. There were words switched, one character's name was different on one page (as if it was a name Arlidge had used temporarily but forgot to switch it to the final name), words missing. I've never seen this with Arlidge's books, so I'm not sure what's going on. I would expect this in an ARC, but I was reading a final published edition. It was a little distracting, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.

I cannot WAIT for book #10, "Truth or Dare," which comes out June 2021! ( )

Loved this. Such an exciting, tense read. It will be hard waiting for the next book in the series ( )