This book was sent to me by the author for an honest review. AP Bateman writes crime thrillers, and is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author.
DCI O’Bryan is recovering from life: he’s an alcoholic, his family have left him, and he’s recently survived a stab wound while taking out a terrorist in London. He’s just arrived in Cornwall to stay at the holiday home of his boss, who has just died. And who also left him a mysterious message to watch the water at a certain place and time. Because there’s something rotten in the state of, er, Cornwall.
It involves the case of a family of Syrian refugees found drowned off the coast, people smuggling and a sex ring, and things quickly spiral as O’Bryan finds out who is really involved and what’s being covered up.
There’s a lot of really terrible crime novels out there, and especially ones that involve cheesey terrorist plots and pop cultural references, but this is one of the good ones. It’s quite pacey and plot twisty, which I really liked. I kind of guessed some of the plot early on, but not all of it and it in no way left me bored because of it. I kind of liked the odd references thrown into this book about current events and things, and the Cornwall setting, with it’s small town ways and split between the haves and have nots, the old school stories of smugglers caves and modern tales of organised crime, well, it all came together really well. AP Bateman has a nice narrative flow to his work, he keeps the pace and interest up well. His prose is quite tight and focuses on plotting and action rather than long description, which works really well for the genre. I quite enjoyed this one.
Read It If: you’re looking for a new crime thriller or police procedural mystery. This one feels really modern and fast paced.
CravenWild 