Hello and welcome to the second post this Friday to “Celebrate Indie Publishing”, I promised you not one but two books, so here is the second book to feature today. This time we have Death Parts Us by Alex Walters, it was published on 28 September 2017 by Bloodhound Books.
Book Feature:
Description:
A chilling new crime thriller from a best-selling author.
Twenty years ago, Jackie Galloway was a senior cop with a bad reputation. Then he ended up on the wrong side of the wrong people, and his career was ruined. Sacked and with no pension, he ends up eking out his last days on Scotland’s Black Isle, his mind lost to dementia, supported only by his long-suffering wife, Bridie.
Then Galloway is found dead. The police assume the death to be accidental, until Bridie Galloway reveals that her husband has been receiving threatening letters containing only the phrase: ‘NOT FORGOTTEN. NOT FORGIVEN.’
DI Alec McKay is struggling to come to terms with life without his estranged wife Chrissie, and is living in isolation on the Black Isle. As a junior officer, McKay had been allocated to Galloway’s team and has bad memories of the man and his methods. Now he finds himself investigating Galloway’s death.
But when suspicion falls on him and more police officers are murdered, the pressure is on for McKay to solve the case.
Why would the killer seek revenge twenty years after Galloway left the force?
As McKay fights to link the events of past and present, he realizes that time is rapidly running out…
My Thoughts & Review:
I’ve done it again, I’ve broken my rule about reading books in a series out of order, there, I’ve admitted it and we can move on.
In all fairness this book can be read as a stand alone book but if you want to read the series I would highly recommend it. After finishing Death Parts Us, I headed straight over to Amazon to buy the first book in the series Candles and Roses so that I could find out what really happened before this book and can happily report that these can be read out of order and it’s actually quite nice to have read them out of order.
When I started reading this I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but I am a huge fan of Scottish crime thrillers so was keen to try this book. Certainly the book description grabbed my attention, but I was also intrigued by the setting. The Black Isle and Inverness are places I’ve visited quite a lot, we recently holidayed up in Fortrose on the Black Isle so I was interested to see if the author could bring the place alive through the book. He certainly did, so many of the places mentioned brought memories of being on the Black Isle, and I could envision the winding roads and side streets so clearly.
DI Alec McKay is a character that I thoroughly enjoyed reading about, his cantankerous ways reminded me of a few male members of my family, and I loved his sense of humour. The sarcastic moments that played out in his head during conversations were hilarious at times and really made me like him that little bit more. There’s something about the way he is described that brings such a clear image to mind, I found that after I’d finished reading this I was mentally casting actors to play in him a TV series.
The sheer brilliance of the plot caught me off guard, just about when I was beginning to feel smug about working out part of the “whodunit” I was left open mouthed and stunned that I’d got it so wrong, fair play to you Alex Walters, you laid a fantastic trail of red herrings to lead me astray! The idea of police officers being killed off makes for an interesting twist, you don’t see that played out too often in crime thrillers. The way that the plot links up and plays out is wonderful, small details you might not think are key suddenly become wee light bulb moments and you find that you’re racing through the book to find out how it all links up in the end.
A fantastic thriller that I would have no hesitation to recommend and will be keenly keeping an eye out for more books featuring Alec McKay!
You can buy a copy of Death Parts Us via:
Great review, Kate. Sounds really good, I’ll be investigating further 😉 We’re actually on the road heading up to Scotland!
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Thank you 😊 ooh hope you enjoy scotland, wee bit cold & dreich today here xx
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Sunny so far but I’m expecting a mixed bag 😁
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