A kidnapping ends with drug dealers from two generations in a battle for power.

Clemenza, the daughter of a wealthy Columbian drug dealer, is kidnapped. Her boyfriend Malo, the son of actress Enora Andersson and a one night stand with a drug dealer, now ‘clean’ millionaire businessman Hayden Prentice, is definitely lying about the circumstances.

Enora has just recovered from brain cancer surgery and is the go-to person in the plot of this novel. Her scriptwriter and new boyfriend Pavel is a very intuitive recently blind man. However, I believe the character of Pavel creates an unnecessary side-show in the novel. I say that with reservation, though because in real life when one thing often happens a whole lot of other chaos goes down at the same time. As in this novel, crises are not neatly put into a box.

Enora is separated from her Swedish husband Bernt, who thought Malo was his son. But Malo seems to have his father’s genes, and it emerges that his life is not so clean or honest. Malo and his girlfriend, Clemmie, are young and in an intense relationship. Her father flies in from Bogota to deal with the kidnappers who demanded $1 million in a few days. Her father’s involvement in the kidnapping is an interesting ‘side-show’ to the plot.

H (Hayden) wants to handle the kidnappers in his way, which is clever, brash and rude and extremely violent. However, H is convinced that Malo is involved because he (H) understands the drug trade and teenagers who are involved in it. Each character deals with the kidnapping almost independently of each other because each one thinks they know best.

A circuitous route to the unexpected conclusion balances out unusual characters and events in this novel.


BonnieK

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review.

Blooming heck, there's a lot going on in this book! Kidnap, drugs, county lines, accidents and incidents, secrets lies and duplicitous behaviour, a smattering of romance, and quite a bit of violent shenanigans. And it isn't a long book by any means. But it all just works! It probably helps if you've read the first in series as the relationships between the main players in this book is a tad complex to say the least!
So, in this book, Malo's girlfriend Clemmie has been kidnapped. He received a message and photo on his phone demanding a ransom and warning against involving the Police. So, he goes to his mother, Enora, for help. She ropes in Malo's father Hayden Prentice - HP or Saucy - and, with further assistance from some of his "contacts" they pit their wits and resources to try and get Clemmie back. Things don't quite go according to plan though, but I'll leave you to discover the rest as the author intends.
I said in my review for Curtain Call, the first in this series, that this author is one of my favourites. I loved his Faraday and Winter series, set in my own home town of Portsmouth, or Pompey as he still refers to it throughout this book. So I am probably a bit biased about my feelings for anything else he has written. This book, along with its predecessor, is peppered throughout with links to Portsmouth and also features and mentions some of the characters from the Faraday series which I found a nice nod to loyal readers but nothing that would irk a newbie to this author.
Yes there were things that didn't quite make perfect sense, some things that didn't quite sit right along the way, and the occasional thing that was just a little bonkers. But, and it's a big but here, putting the whole together rather than isolating and critiquing each element, these things paled into the insignificant for me.
There is probably so much more I can say, specifically regarding pot & kettle nature of certain characters and the storyline as it develops but to say much more would inject spoilers into my review and that's not the done thing. Suffice to say that I really loved this book and am very much looking forward to the next instalment. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Not my cup of tea.
I couldn't connect to the characters and the book didn't keep my attention even if it's well written.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Enora Andresson is a distinguished English actress. Perhaps slightly past her youthful allure, she remains a beauty who can pick and choose her projects, and her films are highly thought of. She has three problems clouding her horizon. The first is, as they say, a bastard. She has a brain tumour. It has been treated but she is only too aware that she may have won a battle, but not the war. Problems two and three are related – literally. She is separated from her Swedish husband, but they have a son – a young man called Malo – who is something of a wrong ‘un. The third problem relates to the words “they have a son”. Fact is, she does – her husband doesn’t. Malo’s father is actually a millionaire businessman named Hayden Prentice, and Malo was conceived during a drunken one-nighter just before Enora’s wedding. So why is Harold a problem? Although he is now an honest man, with legitimate investments and business interests, he made his initial fortune as a drug baron.

Although Enora and Prentice (known hereafter as ‘H’) are now reunited after a fashion, the relationship does not extend to the bedroom, and Enora’s current interest is Pavel, an enigmatic scrptwriter. Pavel’s Easterm European allure is rather manufactured, however, as his real name is the more prosaic Paul. What he says about the art of story-telling, however, could equally apply to Graham Hurley’s own magic wand:

“The best stories detach you from real life. You float away down the river of fiction, lie back and enjoy he view. The storyteller’s challenge is to cast a spell, and the longer that spell lasts, the better.”

The main plot of Sight Unseen hinges around the kidnapping of Malo’s Colombian girlfriend Clemmie. When a ransom demand of a million dollars is received her father, who, like many rich men from that benighted republic, has kidnap insurance, simply hands the case over to the experts. H, however, has other ideas, and decides to do things his way.

Hayden Prentice is a brilliant creation and is, in many ways, at the centre of the book, as he was when we first met Enora in Curtain Call. Formerly known as Saucy from his initials, he is hewn from the same rich vein of villainy that produced the elemental force that was Bazza McKenzie in Graham Hurley’s brilliant Joe Faraday novels. H is blunt, foul-mouthed but very, very shrewd. Hurley will not be at all perturbed were readers to visualise H rather like the formidable Harold Shand, as portrayed unforgettably by the great Bob Hoskins in The Long Good Friday.

As the ransom deadline passes, with the customary video as proof-of-life, and a hiking up of the cash demand, H is increasingly convinced that Malo is, somehow more involved in the affair than simply being the anxious boyfriend. The insidious and infamous County Lines drug trade raises its ugly head, and H delivers a brief but brilliantly incisive summary of the endgame he sees engulfing the England he once knew:

“You think your own little town is safe? You think those sweet kids of yours won’t ever get in trouble with drugs? Wrong. And you know why? Because something we all took for granted has gone. Families? Mums? Dads? A propr job? Getting up in the morning? Totally bolloxed. No-one has a clue who they are any more, or where they belong, and there isn’t a single politician in the country who can tell them what to do about it.”

H has a country mansion, Flixcombe, not far from the Dorset town of Bridport. Despite its artisan bakeries, galleries and twee delis there is a grim underbelly which involves, inevitably, drugs. A local tells Enora that the main players are little more than children:

“Nothing frightens these little bastards …. streetwise doesn’t begin to cover it. They think theyre immortal. Remember that.”

The finale is astonishing - a bravura affair which only a fine writer like Graham Hurley could hope to get away with. No spoilers, but it involves a doomed English explorer and an old ballad which once inspired Bob Dylan. Sight Unseen is published by Severn Houe and is out now.

A good plot with some thrilling action, I have enjoyed reading Graham Hurley from his Portsmouth days through to Devon and this new series is another enjoyable addition. I like the interaction between the main characters and enjoy the dialogue. The social commentary on Britain today is always appreciated and the look at the shadier side of the drugs market is explored well.

#SightUnseen #NetGalley

I cannot complain about the cost as I got this through Netgalley as a review copy. I was initially attracted by the author as I really enjoyed the Faraday and Winter books which were based around the Portsmouth underworld. This book was not a patch on these and left me largely disappointed. I did not engage with any of the characters and felt the plot itself was weak. I kept going till the end purely to finish the book. May appeal to others but not my type of reading material.

I really enjoyed Curtain Call the first book by this author to introduce Enora Andressen so was keen to start reading this one.

In this the second, wayward son Malo who appeared to be straightening himself out at the end of the previous book seems to have gone off the rails again, this time though girlfriend Clemmie is involved and the stakes are higher.

I found it easy to get into this one having recently read the previous book and being familiar with most of the characters. A new man on the scene in Enora's life is Pavel, a blind movie scriptwriter. Admirer/friend/very close friend, the character of Pavel never really took shape for me and although the storyline moved along at a good pace it didn't really grip me in the same way that Curtain Call did.

Whilst I've no doubt this could be read as a standalone novel as events from the previous are recapped where necessary, I'd recommend reading Curtain Call first.

The second in a series that is gathering momentum beautifully. Hurley is such an underrated author and I loved his Farady series and there are echo of some of the main characters from there within this new series.

Enora Andressen, the heroine of this series is further developed as an intriguing character in this timely tale of drugs, and kidnapping where her errant son is out of parental control and spiralling into bad habits and worse company.

There is much about the drugs scourge that is ravaging the UK at the moment and how young children are coerced into county lines drug dealing.

Good entertainment as always and a rollicking good story too.

Try it and help make an excellent author famous.

Thank you NetGalley and Severn House for the eARC.
This is the second book in the (possible?) series featuring fading actress and brain tumor survivor Enora Andressen. I adored the first book and was really looking forward to the follow-up. Unfortunately it didn't, for me, even come close to the excellent first outing. It was almost as if it was written by someone else. It was about the kidnapping of her son Malo's girlfriend by a drugs gang and trying to get her returned. The drug crisis features heavily (quite depressing) as well as Enora's relationship with a blind screenwriter. I found that relationship incomprehensible and the fact that the seeing eye dog is last heard of tied to something was upsetting. Malo, to my mind, needs a good slapping and the end was a bit out there. Very disappointing.