Thanks to Aria and Sarah Flint for the ARC provided via NetGalley. This is my unbiased review.

The Trophy Taker by Sarah Flint
Aria, 1st April 2017
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis:
He keeps each one floating in formaldehyde to stop them from rotting. Each finger denotes a victim, tortured and butchered, their heart ripped out and discarded, replaced instead by symbols of their treachery. He sits alone admiring his trophies weekly; each and every one of them guilty in his eyes. And now more must pay.
But who or what links the victims?

DC 'Charlie' Stafford is already investigating a series of escalating racist attacks, and it now seems she has a vicious serial killer on her patch. With no leads and time running out, the team at Lambeth is at near breaking point.
Something has to give... and all the while, he's watching, waiting ... and counting.

Review:
Although this is the second in the DC Stafford series, it could also easily be read as a stand-alone if you've not read the first book, so feel free to dive right into this dark, macabre police procedural.

Charlie Stafford is part of a close-knit team, and there is quite a cast of characters to get to know in this book. That, and the constantly switching viewpoints between Charlie and the killer, could get really confusing if you don't give this book the total, undivided attention it deserves.

The plot flowed well and was fast-paced, as expected with this genre, but the book ended rather abruptly, which surprised me. It felt a little rushed, but the killer's identity had up to that point been unbeknownst to me; kudos to Sarah Flint for that!

#TheTrophyTaker #SarahFlint #Aria #AriaFiction #NetGalley #BookReview

This was a brilliant read. As soon as I started reading this book I just knew I was going to love it. Highly recommended

Aria and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of The Trophy Taker. I voluntarily chose to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

DC Charlotte 'Charlie' Stafford has her hands full investigating a series of escalating racist attacks when it becomes increasingly apparent that there is a vicious serial killer in their midst. The killer takes a trophy each time, as well as replacing the victim's hearts with a symbol of their supposed crime. Will the team be able to find both criminals before more victims are discovered?

The author never really settles in, does not develop the main character in a way that allows readers to get to know Charlie. As the story floats back and forth between killer and the main plot, the continuity is lost. I am a huge fan of police procedural novels, but The Trophy Taker was neither suspenseful nor thrilling. I had a hard time making my way through, between awkward writing style choices and choppy sentences. For these reasons, I would not recommend The Trophy Taker to other readers.

The trophy taker by Sarah Flint.
This is book 2 of the DC Charlotte Stafford series.
Brilliant read. A great series. Lots of action. I'm looking forward to the next book. 5*.

Really enjoyable read. Good characters and a Good story. Well worth a read. Think others will enjoy.

This is the second book in the DC Charlotte Stafford series, and once again Ms Flint does not disappoint! She has to deal with victims that are not seemingly related in anyway........ The killer takes a little souvenir, and earns himself the nickname of The Trophy Taker.... Brilliant book, worth your time and effort!

The Trophy Taker focuses on DC Charlie Stafford's efforts to bring a serial killer to justice. A body is found in a cemetery with its heart and ring finger missing.

The Trophy Taker is dark and macabre so it isn't for everyone. If you like British police procedurals, you will probably enjoy the book. I found the number of typographical errors to be distracting; the books needs editing. The action develops and builds slowly. This isn't a bad book, but it is a little tedious.

This is Sarah's second book featuring Charlie and her team and my god it was as good if not better than her first one Mummy's favourite. Someone is murdering people who seem to have nothing in common. A respectable separated teacher, a gay man and a young prostitute. What do they have in common and who hates them enough to dismember their bodies to such a vicious degree and what has happened to the finger of the left hand that is always removed, while they are still alive. A fast paced hard hitting book with lots of description. A great read. Cannot wait for the next installment!

Book 2 in the DC Charlotte Stafford series brings us a serial killer who takes the ring finger of each victim as a memento. He leaves behind victims with their chests open, hearts taken out and thrown and leaves "symbols of their treachery". He has a list of people who at one point or another have metaphorically ripped out his heart so he's returning the favor. DC Stafford is baffled as each victim is so different from the other. On top of this, she is also tracking a racist man who is addicted to drugs and attacking minorities for little reward to get his next fix.

A typical police procedural, this could also work as a standalone. I never felt lost in the characters or their backgrounds from missing the first book. This book starts out with a bang and the killer is quite demented, something I always like in a storyline. I did feel it began to get a bit repetitive and there were too many characters introduced that I got a tad bit confused with where the finale came from. I certainly didn't figure out who the killer ended up being which is always a nice surprise. While the racial attacks were the secondary storyline, I felt myself preferring that over the main premise and would have liked to have delved more into this. Fans of police procedurals with a strong female lead will definitely take a liking to this novel.

Welcome back DC Charlie Stafford.

We first met DC Charlie Stafford in the brilliant Mummy’s Favourite She’s a member of a team headed by DI Geoffrey Hunter called the Community Support Unit. This task force deals mainly with cases of domestic violence or racial attacks.

The team are busy celebrating that they’ve finally managed to catch and lock up a dangerous crackhead who has been attacking and leaving people of colour with very serious injuries when a call comes in – they are to assist in a murder investigation. The body of a woman has been discovered in a graveyard. The team are shocked to see the amount of damage that the perpetrator has inflicted on the woman’s body. The horror of what they have seen makes them determined to track down the killer.

It’s not long into the investigation when two more bodies are found, with similar mutilations. The team realise that they need to work fast to stop this serial killer.

Sarah Flint has given us some very special people to tell this story. The team headed by DI Hunter are a very united group who work well together under pressure. Charlie is still always late, still looks a mess, but her policing skills are always focused on the cases she deals with. The perpetrators, both the murderer and the crackhead, are also real. Yes, we would recognise the crackhead for the bully and violent person he is, but I doubt whether we’d ever have suspected the killer who is after all hiding in plain sight.

I should mention that I’m so pleased that Ben and Charlie are still friends and that, finally, he seems to have turned a corner with the PTSD from which he’s suffered since leaving the army. (If you want to know why I’ve especially mentioned him – read Mummy’s Favourite!) I know I’m singling out their friendship, but he’s been around her for a while now and their friendship is so special and adds such a human touch in an otherwise very dark and complex case.

Sarah Flint is a brilliant author and I look forward to reading the next (gruesome) murder that Charlie Stafford, her boss Geoffrey Hunter and fellow team members will have to solve. Please don’t make us wait too long Sarah!

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

great read and easy to follow story line. look forward to reading more from this author

This is the second book in the DC Charlie Stafford series. Charlie and her team are a really likeable gang. The author shows enough of each personality in the team to the reader to allow the group to gel as a unit in your head.
Charlie is on a mission to ensure that the man behind a series of shocking racist attacks, Cornell Miller is caught and brought to justice but then she is faced with the crimes of someone who rips the hearts from his victims cheats and carelessly tosses them aside.
With three possible suspects in her line of vision Charlie and her team must work fast to piece together the evidence and catch the killer.
This book is a fast paced read. The quality of writing along with the details of police procedures is fantastic. I will absoloutly be purchasing the first book.
The only negative I found with this particular book was that it ended very suddenly. That aside it was a fantastic read.

If you cannot get enough of the jaw-dropping twists and turns on Line of Duty and are looking for the next nail-biting police procedural, then look no further than Sarah Flint’s second title in her DC Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Stafford series, The Trophy Taker.

DC Charlie Stafford’s hard work in bringing a racist criminal, who committed heinous acts of violence, to justice seems to have finally paid off, but all of her hopes of seeing him put behind bars are shattered when he flees custody and leaves a trail of misery and devastation behind him. Undeterred, Charlie vows to keep on fighting until she sees the evil man jailed and punished, however, she soon has another case occupying her mind.

A dead body found in a cemetery is, usually, not something that can be regarded as unusual or strange. But when the dead body in question has had its heart and ring finger ripped out, this savage and macabre act indicates that there is a sick and twisted mind on the loose. An evil criminal is stalking and preying upon his victims and then butchering them up in the most heinous way possible, but with no leads to go on and with time not on their side, Charlie and her team might have just come across a case they simply cannot solve.

With the body count increasing and mounting opposition breathing down her neck, Charlie begins to wonder whether there just might be a connection between ‘The Trophy Taker’ and the racist scumbag whom she is determined to see locked up for good…or whether the real killer might be closer than she thinks.

The Trophy Taker is definitely not a book for the faint-hearted. Dark, twisted and gruesome, this is the sort of book you’d best read with the light on! A heart-pounding chiller that is guaranteed to tantalize and terrify, The Trophy Taker is a taut and tense tale that is definitely not easy to put down. Sarah Flint is a writer who certainly knows how to keep her readers hanging onto her every word and she grabs their attention from the get-go and keeps them on tenterhooks from beginning to end. Packed with intrigue, danger and suspense, The Trophy Taker should come with a warning: once you start reading it, you will find yourself unable to stop.

If you love Sarah Hilary and Val McDermid, then you are sure to add Sarah Flint’s name to your auto-buy list!

After reading Mummy's Favourite, the first book in the DC 'Charlie' Stafford series, last year, I wasn't convinced that Charlie was a protagonist I would be keen on following, but with this second book, Sarah Flint has me fully on board now. Charlie comes across as more "real" in this installment and Ms Flint has delivered a solid police procedural that should appeal to all fans of British crime fiction. Charlie and her team are busy with two cases: the racially aggravated assaults committed by Cornell Miller who has escaped custody and the search for a killer who rips his victims' hearts out and keeps their ring fingers as trophies. Sounds gruesome, but compared to some of the scenarios in Mummy's Favourite, Sarah Flint has turned it down a lot. I wasn't anywhere near as disturbed as I was reading the first book. If you add the family atmosphere and banter among the team of the Community Support Unit at the Metropolitan Police, this actually had a feel-good tone to it (in parts) with the entire team made up of very likable characters. Charlie's third person point of view covers the majority of the book, but small passages are written from the perspectives of the serial killer and from Cornell Miller. I thought that worked well. I actually felt more invested in the secondary storyline about the racial crimes than in the hunt for the serial killer. The nastiness of Cornell Miller was repulsive and reading about how one of his victims' life was affected was intensely moving. The author did a very good job with the way the two storylines were combined in the end. Overall, this was a well-paced, enjoyable and believable police procedural with realistic characters. I look forward to more.
I received an ARC via NetGalley.

The Trophy Taker by Sarah Flint is the second novel in the DC Charlotte Stafford series. I hadn’t read the first book in this series, which I always worry will be an issue, but I didn’t find that I had an issue navigating Stafford’s backstory or the story of her team. This novel can be read as a standalone.

The novel opens with a particularly vicious serial killer who tortures his victims, removes their hearts from their bodies and takes one of their fingers for his own personal collection. He is a trophy taker. Stafford and her team are baffled by these killings, as the victimology is completely different; there does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to the killings or how he is choosing his victims. Stafford is forced to press her limits and dig deep to find the perpetrator.

Stafford as a lead character was awesome, I am always a huge fan of anything with a strong, female protagonist and Stafford fit that mould. In fact, I was impressed with how much diversity Flint brought into this police procedural, especially in regards to the secondary storyline with the racial attacks.

My biggest complaint with this novel was how much was actually going on. Besides the main story and the secondary plot, there were, what felt like, one million characters and one million possibilities happening. By the end, when the perpetrator was finally revealed, I had to flick back pages and try to reconnect everything since the number of characters had me confused.

Overall, I did enjoy the plot and feel that any fans of police procedurals will enjoy this real. It’s fast-paced, realistic and had an extremely likeable lead!

After managing to get the perpetrator of a horrific racist attack to court, DC Charlie Stafford is feeling pretty proud of herself. All feelings of relief are short-lived, however, when he manages to flee custody, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Meanwhile, a body is found in a cemetery. While this might not seem out of the ordinary, this body has had its heart ripped out and a finger removed, the finger joining those of the other people killed by the same man. He’s stalking and mutilating his victims but what links them? The investigating team at Lambeth are pushed to their limits as they try to find both men before more lives are ruined and more bodies are found.

The Trophy Taker is Sarah Flint’s second book in the DC Charlie Stafford series. The first, the brilliant Mummy’s Favourite, was published last year and, in my opinion, this one is even better! Like many books of its genre, the story is told from the perspective of multiple characters: Charlie, the unknown killer and Cornell Miller, the aforementioned racist attacker. This helped to move the plot along nicely and gave a good insight into all aspects of the case.

The book is, at times, graphic, as it deals with such heinous crimes as paedophilia and racially-motivated attacks. When a depraved killer is added to the mix, this certainly makes it a book for those with a strong stomach! I found myself longing for Cornell Miller to be caught and admired his victims for their ‘never say die’ attitudes. The horrific nature of the crimes also give us a chance to fully understand Charlie’s personality and how she wants, more than anything, for the perpetrators to be off the streets.

As in the first book, I loved the character of Charlie – a woman devoted to her work but still very much in the real world. It is also refreshing to read a police procedural where colleagues actually get along and there is no animosity between the lower and upper ranks. The other main characters are also well-written and likeable and I particularly enjoyed reading any scenes featuring Ben and hope that he can continue to fight his demons in any sequels.

Sarah Flint has done a good job in keeping you guessing right to the end as she introduces several suspects who could quite feasibly be the killer. I found that there was a moment when the penny dropped and realised that there were little clues throughout the story that I only picked up on with hindsight. I would also like to thank her for piquing my interest in Cross Bones Graveyard in Southwark – an area I have visited but was not aware of the hidden history lurking off the trodden path.

Although The Trophy Taker is the second in the series, it is not essential to have read the first. I would recommend you do, though, as it is another brilliant read.

With thanks to Aria (Head of Zeus), Sarah Flint and Net Galley for the ARC.

This is the second book in a series featuring Charlie Stafford but I jumped in with no problem at all. I warmed quickly to Charlie, she’s a good cop but she’s not jaded and disenchanted by her job, she’s still eager to find justice for victims of crime and she also has a fantastic sense of humor. The rest of the team she works with are also likable and there’s a genuine sense of family amongst them. Charlie is shuffling two cases at the same time, the first is a series of racially motivated attacks perpetrated by a real scumbag. When he manages to escape from prison, she’s bound and determined to ensure he gets back behind bars, and fast. The second is a series of murders where the killer removes the victims ring finger before brutally killing them. As Charlie struggles to find a connection between the victims, bodies keep popping up and she knows that it’s a race against the clock.

Flint was a police officer for thirty five years and her knowledge is evident in her writing. It’s a standard police procedural and you can really tell it’s written by someone with firsthand experience. Sometimes in crime thrillers there are moments where things just don’t make sense and as an average citizen,even I can spot discrepancies. There was none of that here, everything seemed very genuine. It’s a dark, gritty, fast paced read and there were quite a few suspects to choose from making it all the more difficult for me to solve the puzzle, I definitely didn’t have things worked out. It was a solid read and one that would appeal to any crime fiction fans.

The Trophy Taker by Sarah Flint was a book I didn't know anything about besides the title. So I went into it not knowing what to expect. I enjoyed it! I was nervous seeing that it was book two for D.C. Charlotte Stafford though - not all are good as a standalone, but I think this one did a good job!

"He's watching, waiting...and counting". Creepy, right? Love the tagline for this book.

DC Charlie Stafford is back! While investigating a series of escalating racist attacks, there seems to be a new serial killer gaining some momentum. Each victim is found with their heart ripped out, and replaced by symbols of their treachery, and then each are missing a finger. Hence the title, trophy taker. None of the victims are linked to each other by any person or event, so DC Stafford has her work cut out for her this time!

Even though it is book two, I didn't seem to find myself as lost as I have been in some detective novels (at least when I unknowingly start in the middle of a series). Flint did a great job making a strong female lead. I've always enjoyed a good mystery/thriller with a strong female lead (whether she's the detective, villain, or 'victim') that you felt connected with. A serial killer that's incredibly demented, strong female lead, and I wasn't able to predict the ending (always a major plus!) were things that I loved about this. However, the downsides, there were SO many characters that needed to be kept straight. That got confusing in parts of the book - especially because there were two stories going on (the main story about the serial killer and then the racial attacks).

Overall, a great police procedural. Anyone that is a fan, will definitely enjoy this one! It was a quick read and I liked the plot. I loved DC Stafford, so I'll definitely be looking into book one!

I give this 3.5/5 stars!

Thanks to Aria for the copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed reading The Trophy Taker. This is the second novel about DC Charlotte Stafford but is perfect to read as a standalone novel. The story is set in London this time and Charlie is a withered and serious detective. Her hair and clothes could use some improvement but there's nothing to say about her skills, or of those of the rest of her team. They are tightly knit and it was great to see them working together and see the contributions from other team members too.

The story starts out with her troubles with Cornell Miller who carried out a racist attack on an old, kind man who's been hiding in his house ever since. She's vowed to protect Moses and will try her utmost but will have to divide her time chasing The Trophy Taker too. The first victim of this killer is found in a cemetery, her heart is ripped out and tossed on the ground, her ring finger missing.

I was happy to read about some real police work in this novel and thanks to this outstanding detective work suspicion falls fairly soon on not one but no less than three possible suspects. All of these men have something to hide and a possible motive. I never had a problem believing their motive. The author kept me guessing good and let me have a good time figuring it out on myself.

I wasn't entirely surprised who the killer finally turned out to be and I knew for sure a few pages before Charlotte Stafford did, but then I really don't need much to get on the right trail ;-). It was still entertaining to see how it all played out and how she really got on the right track, involving Cornell Miller even in her chase for the killer. She did an excellent job of letting these two storylines mix in the end.

If you like a nice police procedural novel, this novel is certainly comparable to Robert Bryndza's series and I can definitely recommend adding The Trophy Taker to your reading list.

DC Charlie Stafford is back in the 2nd book in what is fast becoming an excellent series. We begin with Charlie already embroiled in a series of nasty racist attacks, one in particular having troubled Charlie on an elderly man, Moses. While Charlie and her team are desperately chasing the vicious attacker, a body is discovered with a finger missing.

As the cases progress, each with bumps along the way, more bodies are found and it soon becomes clear there is an evil serial killer on their patch, and the pressure is on to catch him before he kills again.

I really hope this is going to be a long running series, as I can't help like Charlie and want to read more of her adventures and love the way the author manages to carefully weave the story together.

As with Mummy's Favourite, Sarah's debut novel, I was completely immersed from the very first chapter, and honestly found myself getting annoyed by interruptions when I was trying to read this. I have absolutely no problems recommending this brilliant book which I couldn't award anything less than top marks!!!