Know No Evil has a very good storyline and is well paced. The characters are well developed and the writing is decent.

DI Matthew Henning is with a new squad and his new boss has made it clear he has a lot to prove to show he deserves his recent promotion. A high profile murder of a young mother has the press, the public and the senior police admin crying for an arrest. With the help of DS Molly Fisher, Henning makes a connection between this murder and a killing spree ten years before. The problem is, a man has already been tried and convicted of those crimes. Is there a copycat, a partner, or did the police arrest the wrong man? Hampton’s strengths lie is his ability to portray life on a police squad, the petty power squabbles, the boredom and the outright terror.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

I assume this is the first in a planned series of novels featuring DI Denning and DS Fisher, since we learnt so much about their personal lives here. I thought this was a well-plotted and well-paced police procedural. I disliked DS Fisher, but maybe she will redeem herself in future instalments, and DS Neeraj has potential as a character.

The writing was the weakest thing about the book for me - the author seemed to be trying too hard somehow. There were constant descriptions of the ways light fell in the early chapters and in places the narration would suddenly become very slangy, almost like speech, before reverting to normal. There is currently one big continuity error and a few cases of repetition, but hopefully these will be picked up before publication.

I would be keen to read more in this series.