Member Reviews

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

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This was a great book. I love the setting, gritty and northern, just down the road from me, and the characters felt real to me. I look forward to reading more of this series.

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Next victim by Helen H Durrant.
This is book 2 of Detective Rachel King.
A brilliant read. I had no ideas who the killer was. I was shocked by the ending. Great story and some good characters. I. Looking forward to the next book. 5*.

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I've read books by Helen Durrant previously and found them enjoyable. This was no different and started off with a grisly and gory murder and a likeable detective in Rachel King. The whole thing jogged along well until we got into Jed McAteer territory, which is when, for me, the whole thing went downhill. I just couldn't get on board with a mature, sensible woman with two children chucking everything for a lowlife like McAteer. Once I found that stretched the realms of credulity I kind of lost interest in the whole book. I will continue with Helen Durrant's other series but won't invest any more time in Rachel King. Sorry, not for me.

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DCI Rachel King lives in a highly dysfunctional family. Her two teenage daughters bicker all the time and she lives next door to her ex-husband who wants to join their two houses. Oh boy… She also has an ex-boyfriend, who wants to get reacquainted, but he is a major crime boss and she knows she’d be in deep trouble at work if such a relationship came out. She loves him however. What to do?
The burned and stabbed remains of a young man are found in the centre of Manchester. There are no clues as to his identity and no obvious motive. Rachel's eldest daughter is at Uni and has a close friend Alice. She is determined to find out what happened to her twin brother who disappeared alongside their mother. The victim, Oliver, decided to play a cruel practical joke and had the name Alfie tattooed on his foot. CCTV footage shows Oliver arguing with businessman Gregson.

I liked the character of Rachel King especially her struggles with a tough job as well as keeping her family safe, while trying to avoid the skeletons in her closet from becoming common knowledge. It has a gripping and fast-paced plot, twists and turns that kept me guessing, and the deeper I got into the story the more the tension increased, leading to the conclusion that was nail-bitingly dramatic. This is definitely a thriller not to be missed.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Joffe Books and the author Helen H. Durrant for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

#NextVictim #NetGalley

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Another fantastic read from the author. Gripping and full of twists and turns. Enjoyed Rachel's character and looking forward to more.

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This year looks like it will be another great year for Joffe Authors, and starts with a bang from Helen Durrant with the first in this brand new series. The main Detective in this series is DCI Rachel King, a divorced mother of two, who has a habit of bad decisions in dating in the past.
The book starts of with a bang, where a man convinces a young lad to meet up for a bit of fun and then the boy is found dead, tortured and burnt alive.
DCI King is then made SIO for the case but can't find anything linking him to why he was murdered. As a reader we know that all the items the police find were planted there by the murderer, but obviously the police don't know this so are left chasing red herrings.
Through the book we learn more about Rachel and her team as they are left working out who commited the murders. One of the things that makes this book great is that Rachel has an interesting past with an ex-lover of hers being a crime boss, who has just recently got back in contact with her just as this case has started.
I really enjoyed the book as I was left guessing all the way through, and knew there would be more than the one murder so was trying to work everything out with Rachel and her team.
Overall it is a brilliant book and I can't wait to read more concerning Rachel and her team in the near future.

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Wonderful book, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was full of tension, drama and danger and it had me hanging off of the edge of my seat. This was a tough one to put down, it was excellent and I wanted to read late into the night. This truly is Helen H Durrant at her best. A big 5 stars from me, it was a fabulous read.

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As a big fan of Helen H. Durrant I’ve been looking forward to starting her new series following Detective Rachel King. Next Victim is a compelling read with a strong storyline and characters. Very enjoyable read.

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Rachel King is a DCI with the serious crime squad based in Ancoats. She commands a team for east Manchester CID and this is the first in a new crime thriller series.

A young gay man is found tortured to death in the canal. He was young, blonde and beautiful. When he's identified as Oliver Frodshom, some connections are made to a local hardware supplier and leads to questions about the nearby land. In addition, Oliver is known to a friend of Rachel's daughter. Alice Brough was angry with Oliver after a prank he played on her -- pretended to be her long lost twin brother, Alfie. Is Alice somehow responsible for Oliver's death? As Rachel King and her team investigate the associations indicated by forensics, another body is found and the two murders seem to be the work of a serial psychopath. The motive remains unclear and the detectives are convinced that the hardware supplier must be involved somehow -- until... But wait, there's even more -- it seems that Rachel King has a past lover, Jed McAteer, whose name is synonymous with local crime boss. Rachel's association with this man could ruin her career but it seems that his criminal history keeps coming up. And Jed knows Rachel's secret. Lots going on in this book, but NO SPOILERS.

I think I'm really going to enjoy this fast-paced series as the characters develop. Rachel King is a workaholic with little time for her teenaged daughters and her ex husband, Alan. Her relationship with Jed will definitely prove complicating and interesting since she's in the police and he's a villain. The other team members have been introduced and I'm looking forward to learning more about each of them as well. I'm luck to have the second book queued up to read next!

Thank you to NetGalley and Joffe Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.

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A young guy has been found dead forensics show he died and very painful death DCI Rachael King and her team are bought in to solve the murder. A few days later another male body is found showing the same torture as the first. This is a gripping story you will find yourself not being able to read fast enough to find out what happens next.

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I love this author’s writing style and have read everything that she has written to date and loved them all - she has a brilliant writing style and I find her books to be very addictive and she is one of my very favourite author’s for this genre!

I loved the plot line for this one. I thought it was well researched and well developed, I loved that this book is the start of a new series featuring DCI Rachel King, I thought that she was a very intriguing character and someone I am really interesting in getting to know more about and I am also really keen to see where the author takes her! I can’t wait to see how the series develops and I hope we get to read more about Rachel’s background and colleagues too.

The story was well paced and very enjoyable, I loved how the author brought the characters to life with a very engaging and twisty plot too.

It is five stars from me for this one, it is a well written book with a fabulous plot line, I really enjoyed it and it is definitely one that I will be very highly recommending!! Can’t wait to see what she releases next!!

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Wow, what a fantastic and exciting beginning to a new series featuring Detective Rachel King! I always love to read any crime series from the first book and this new series has definitely started with a bang.

Written by best-selling author Helen H. Durrant, this was a fast-paced crime thriller that had me hooked, even before I had swiped my e-reader to take me to the second page.

Helen H. Durrant has drawn a very deep and complex character in DCI Rachel King. She, fittingly, has a past that she doesn't want to be revealed and that she needs to keep buried, as it would put an end to her career. Meanwhile, a very vicious killer is wreaking havoc on her patch and running rings around the police. The killer doesn't want their victims dead but obliterated.

This was such a gripping crime thriller that had my heart racing at times and once I had started reading, I didn't want to put it down, I was enthralled right until the great reveal, which was shocking and totally unexpected.

"Next Victim" was such a brilliant read and I can't wait to see what treats will be in store when Book Two is released. This is a must read, very highly recommended and I absolutely loved it.

Thanks to NetGalley, Joffe books and the author, Helen H. Durrant for the free advanced copy. This is my honest and totally voluntary review.

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Thankyou to NetGalley, Joffe Books and the author, Helen H Durrant, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of Next Victim, in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I thought this bok offered a good, quick read. The storyline was well written with interesting characters. A promising start to a new series.

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A promising start to the new series: fast-paced and gripping, with interesting characters. It wasn't the most original police procedural but very readable. I'll definitely try the next book.

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i’ve read a lot by this author and have always enjoyed her work sadly this new offering wasn’t to my taste. police procedural in its genre the plot wasn’t gritty enough for me and a high ranking officer being in love with a local villain was abit to cliche for me.

many thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Having read other books by this author, I had high expectations and for the most part, these were met. This is a really good police crime thriller. I'm sure other fans of the authors work will not be disappointed.
The only negative for me was that in the past few months, I have read 3 books where the missing child was an insulin dependant diabetic. This may just be an unfortunate coincidence in my reading choices, but is a little strange.

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This is the first book of the series by this author.
I have read other books by this author but this is the best by far

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Thank you net Galley. An interesting new series from Ms. Durrant. It made for an engrossing read. I enjoyed it very much and look forward to more in the series.

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This book is set in Cheshire and the first book in the crime series featuring DCI Rachel King, I read this book in one sitting and will be looking out for the next in the series so thank you Netgalley and the Publisher.

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