A slow start with a lot of not very interesting characters. The first few pages are gripping but then it loses impetus and starts to drag. The characters didn't pull me in and I wasn't really invested in their stories but about two-thirds of the way through the plot suddenly took off and became the thriller I'd been expecting.

This book was sent to me electronically by Netgalley for review. Thanks to the publisher for the copy. What a fantastic book! The author has a great gift for characterisation - nuanced, interesting, believable people! A bit on the long side but enjoyable!

A slow moving thriller about a fire in an Art Gallery and a journalist trying to find out who set the fire and why.
I didn’t know that this book was part of a series and I was reading this as a stand alone novel. I found it hard to get into it because I didn’t know the back story of the principal character. I think I would have enjoyed it better by reading the previous novel first.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I found this one too long. It is a standalone but reads like if it was a part of a series. There is no proper introduction to the characters so I felt it was a bit disjointed.

Black Tag is the second, or possibly, third in a series, although that is not made clear, Reading as a standalone means there is a lot of backstory missed, and I think it would work better if the preceding novel was read first.

Black Tag features crusading journalist Famie Madden and her daughter Charlie. When a nearby London art gallery, the West End Gallery, burns down with an unknown body inside, Madden wants to know why, Her investigation leads her to the owners, the ultra wealthy Nash family, and they are resistant to her approaches. She digs deeper and begins to uncover the true story behind the Nash family's fortune.

A little overlong at 400+ pages, Black Tag is slow to get going. But it is worth persevering and the narrative is compelling once it finds its stride. The characters are strong, although the bad guys are very one dimensional, Overall a decent thriller.