What a great read. I thouroghly enjoyed this book. I read when i could and in between jumped o the audio book. It was great as i managed to get through the books in no time. I also enjoyed watching the tv series, but only after i read the book.

I felt it was interesting and engaging and overall i enjoyed the read. I will certainly look out for more books by this author in the future.

I had issues with the audiobook. What i was able to listen to seemed good. Many thanks to the publisher for the audiobook

DNF - Crime & thriller, police procedural storylines are right up my street but this one really fell short for me. I felt there wasn’t much of anything going on and it just didn’t grip me to the point I was bored and found my mind wandering. The flow of the storyline was a little confusing and I felt I was missing something but that could be down to the fact that I wasn’t gripped and therefore my mind wasn’t fully on what was happening. I didn’t find the narrator particularly engaging and didn’t help with keeping my attention. I’m really not one to give up on a book and tend to see it through so when I do it’s seldom. So at over 11 hours and 30% in I decided I had given it a good go and it just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and W.F Howes LTD for the opportunity to listen to and review this ARC that was published on the 4th of Nov.

I am an avid audiobook listener, in particular a committed listener to crime, mystery & detective style audiobooks, listening to several each week. I am always drawn to books over a certain length as they keep me company on long dog walks, so I was pleased to see this book is over 11 hours long. However, I think part of that is down to the slowness of the narration. The narrator was ok. I’ve heard much worse, but there was nothing about her narration that drew me in and held my attention. However, that may well be a reflection of the plot & storyline rather than the story-telling.
I was really looking forward to listening to this book, especially when I saw the TV dramatisation advertised on ITV (currently recorded as I didn’t want to spoil the book), but, if I’m honest, I’m not sure I’ll bother watching the programme having listened to the book (although I may, just to see if television dramatisation can improve it).
I heard a specific word mentioned in the book that as soon as it was spoken I immediately thought it perfectly summed up what the story is: unremarkable. There is nothing that particularly puts me off (other than the amount of focus on smoking, I’ve never known a modern-day book set in the UK to focus on that past time so frequently), but equally, there was really nothing that hooked me, reeled me in and held my attention throughout. I can often be heard (although hopefully not heard, given that my usual time for listening is out with the dogs) to shout / mutter / comment or even squeal in response to what is happening within the books I am listening to. Unfortunately, this book prompted no response from me whatsoever, in fact, when it finished I was kind of left with the feeling of ‘well, what was the point of all of that?’ as there was just nothing much of any interest happening throughout the majority of the book.
Perhaps I spoilt it by listening to the book directly after a back-to-back Val McDermid 5 book series-binge, but I was left disappointed & disinterested by the plot. I don’t hate this book, far from it, I’m sure the procedural aspects are great, but that’s just the bare bones for a story within this genre - this lacks the flesh of a gripping storyline that immerses the reader within the very substance of the experience alongside the characters.

**please note due to low rating I will not be leaving a public review for this book as I have not paid for it.**

Narrator 5 stars
Fantastic voice. Did a great job playing all the characters

Story 2 stars
I'm sorry for the poor feedback but this story was really felt to me and I just could not get into it