The Edge of Sanity

This book doesn’t waste any time jumping right in. I had no idea where it was going but I knew I was along for the ride. Pitting the lone good guy ex-cop against drug lord Curtis Slater, the Brotherhood of the Righteous and the Majestic Road, The Edge of Sanity is a dark tale of revenge, societal cleansing and what the singular moral compass in all of this will do to rescue his daughter. A continuation of his debut novel Enter the Dark, although you could read this as a stand-alone if you chose, The Edge of Sanity leaves you on the edge of your seat through the final series of twists.

I loved Enter The Dark and this is a great follow up, I did get a little bogged down in the middle but then it jumped back up and grabbed my attention, I definitely think that the books should be read in order to get the full gist of the story.

This is the authors second book and yet another dark and disturbing read. I personally do think readers will benefit from having read, Enter The Dark, the authors first novel as it features some of the characters and gives you more of an insight into the Cyber Crimes Unit as well as the dark web which I think is important to this story.

To start with the story felt a bit like a horror film. I don't want to go into to much detail but the affects that the new drug has on people was pretty horrific to say the least. If your not easily shocked though, you are going to love it! I certainly did.

The story very much focuses on drugs and the dark web. It is certainly a world I didn't really know much about or really understand. Having read this authors books, it's a world I hope to goodness I never find myself part of either. There is no wonder Pete wanted to put it behind him. Sadly he gets dragged right back into the thick of it.

There are some really good characters in this book. Some good, some not so good and some definitely very bad. They are all an important part of the story though and I enjoyed them all for who they were. I mean even the baddies, who doesn't love a good baddie? Danny was one of my stand out characters I think mainly because of the situation he finds himself in.

The Edge of Sanity is a dark and enthralling read of which I had to keep turning those pages. It gives you a great insight into a powerful and disturbing world that will no doubt shock and horrify you. It would certainly make a great movie that's for sure.

I was unsure if I would enjoy this book as it is set around drug dealers, yet the mention of the dark net drew me in. I’m glad I chose this as it was fast paced and had me hooked from the start. Twists and turns had me gasping and I just had to keep reading.

Wow Chris Thomas definitely grabbed my attention with this book and kept me riveted to my seat.
The Smart Man and the Professer operate within the dark web developing and demonstrating new recreational drugs for the world's biggest/nastiest drug cartels.
Without giving too much away former police officers and their families become embroiled in this scenario and the result is exciting, disturbing, harrowing,blood thirsty, gory ..............
Not for the feint hearted but absolutely the most exciting book I've read so far this year. A well deserved 5 stars.

The Smart Man holds a gun to the head of a junkie and his girlfriend who are tied to chairs in their squat. He informs them that are going cold turkey for forty eight hours then he will give them something really good. He holds out a bag of blue crystal powder for them to see. He then says " this is Brainfood and it will blow your mind ".
Peter Harris formally of the Cyber Crimes Unit is living quietly running a guesthouse with his young daughter on the Isle of Wight when his love interest Grace and his daughter Olivia are kidnapped . It is up to Pete and the help of the Brotherhood of Righteous to follow the clues to save them.
They have been kidnapped by an old adversary Slater who likes nothing more than to punish and torture even if they have looked at him the wrong way. The Smart Man and his partner the Professor put on specially screened shows using human guinea pigs to show the effects of their new drug to all the cartels worldwide then open a bidding war. It is now a race against time as Grace is due to star in the next show.
This book is very graphic, very violent and very addictive. I read this book in one sitting, no I DEVOURED this book in one sitting. This is one of the best books I have read this year. This is the second book of this series, but you can read it as a stand alone. This author is amazing. I have ordered the first book . More please!!!!!!
I would like to thank the author Chris Thomas, Bloodhound books and Net.galley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for giving an honest review.

Ahh, now this was a book perfectly suited to me - deliciously dark, disturbing and violent. If you like your crime thrillers gripping and brutal, pick this one up! You certainly won't regret it! 'The Edge of Sanity' is Chris Thomas's second novel, the first being another dark affair entitled 'Enter The Dark' (previously self-published as 'The Red Room'). Both are enthralling psychological thrillers, and although it isn't essential you read them in chronological order, much of the characters backgrounds are discussed in 'Enter The Dark', so it is preferable to have read the first before moving on to this one. Thomas's fascination with criminal psychology and his love of horror films is evident in this tale, and he admits to using these interests to influence his writing. I feel that this is what sets his novels apart from the rest.

This is a very graphic story with many different threads that all end up intertwining and combining into one. I loved the characters, most of them are bad news, even some of the police force are mixed up with the criminals, making for an intensely compelling read. You never really know who are the bad guys and who are the good - a lot of the characters are not to be trusted despite their air of authority. The author effortlessly combines various different elements - drugs, organised crime, the dark web, and vigilante justice, to name but a few. The plot travels along at a fair pace with action aplenty, and I absolutely devoured it in one spine-chilling sitting. Undoubtedly, one of the best thrillers of the year. Having read over 200 from this genre in 2018, this is no small feat! I literally cannot wait for Thomas to publish more of his work.

Many thanks to Bloodhound Books for an ARC. I was not required to post a review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Happy Publication Day! WOW! What a dark, brutal, disturbing and gorey story. The Edge of Sanity will have your stomach turning in parts. This story is action packed with drugs, money, torture and death.

I love the cover of this book! I enjoyed the story, a real page turner that you won’t want to put down. I look forward to reading more by this author in the future.

A look into the dark side of the drug trading community. The story is written well, easy to read and contains short chapters. I awarded a well deserved four stars and would highly recommend this story to you all.

I would say to anyone that is going to read this book please start with Enter the Dark, Chris Thomas’s first novel. So many characters have carried over into this story from the first book so you will have a greater understanding of who belonged to which group and what they actually did. Besides which it is a belting read too. The original cast of characters had disbanded and settled into new lives but there is someone who has been well and truly festering away because of the outcome of the last story and now he has the means to get revenge.
Oh boy this really opens at high-speed gruesome with a new designer drug and its effects on a couple of drug addicts being filmed to be shown on the darknet. The willing stars of the show were eager to take part after being deprived of a fix for a couple of days and then been offered the ultimate high. Whoever controls this drug will be top dog to be feared.
There are some rather distinctive characters in the story and some are seen in a bit of a different light than in the last book. The story becomes very personal and literally new alliances have to be made with people being pushed past their limits. Whoa how I squirmed when the Professor went hands on. It was as if he had four test tubes in front of him not four victims. Each one held a fascination for him as I could almost hear the cogs clicking in his head while he was mentally making adjustments to improve the next test. Gees he was one crazy genius that had gone over to the other side to become just one crazy!
There became a real urgency in the pace that I was reading in the last few chapters. This is one of those stories where I thought this must be the last chapter and it would take another turn and another. Super end!

The Brotherhood of the Righteous is back!!! But not as you know it! If you’ve not read Enter The Dark, I highly recommend it but you can read The Edge Of Sanity as a stand alone as Mr Thomas feeds you enough through the book to catch up.

This novel kicks off with a couple of shocking chapters which set the scene for the rest of the book. The drug the Smart Man is testing has extreme effects right from the start and as the Professor varies the tests on his “pigs” the effects change in a scary way. It’s surprising how life imitates art as only a few days after I finished The Edge of Sanity, I read a couple of articles on Sky News (other news outlets are available) about this new drug called Monkey Dust which bizarrely mirrors Brainfood!

Despite being a creepy character, I loved the Professor talking in rhyme like the oompah lompahs in the Roald Dahl classic. He’s quite a psychotic character….all the chemical fumes he inhales can’t be good for him! He’s the sort of man that I’d step away from slowly before legging it once out of sight.

I loved Olivia. She is one sassy 11 year old. I love her music taste (even if it’s heavily influenced by her dad) and her gaming opinion is echoes what my geeky husband says! Mr Thomas put this young lady though a lot during the course of the story and I’d dread to think how it would affect her long term!

Slater is a dangerous man. He’s got a high opinion of himself and throws his weigh around. Will this be his downfall?! I didn’t like him from the start and my opinion don’t waiver at all.

Yet again Chris Thomas has written a hard hitting crime thriller. I thought Enter The Dark was brutal and would be a hard act to follow but The Edge of Sanity has lived up to expectations and is equally brutal in its delivery.

Chris Thomas has written another fantastic psychological thriller The Edge of Sanity, a follow up to Enter the Dark, and damn does Chris do his newest psychological thriller justice, hell yeah!

The Edge of Sanity is a cold, calculating psychological thriller, where the darkness begins to engulf you from the first page, the demise of socially deprived unknowns, opens up the first stages of the puzzle, a new drug with an intense purpose and a high price to pay. Chris takes us back to the Dark Web, where we become embroiled in Bitcoins, dirty money, drugs, death and torture. Watching the scenario’s unfold, almost to the point we physically become one with the book, playing our part, the unintentional guest in which we have no control over every turn of the page.

Certain characters Chris brings to life in my imagination, have a quality that drives home the stark, depravity of societies pariahs, the downright ugliness brought about by dirty money and the urge to be Top Drug Lord in a world of the socially inept. There was one character who stood out, Pete Harris a former Detective from Cyber Crimes, he has a solid head on his shoulders even when things hit the wall, when his daughter and Grace are snatched, he is methodical in his mind set, picking away at the clues, choosing his alliances well and ultimately doing anything to save the life of his daughter. Can he save his daughter, can he save Grace…….only time and the turning of the pages will tell.

Reading The Edge of Sanity felt like pure ice running through my veins, the drip, drip as the cold darkness hits every chord and mechanism of my imagination, magnifying the chills and enhancing the purest of psychological thrills. Chris doesn’t hold back if you like a horrifying, dark, violent and gruesome thriller then The Edge of Sanity is a must for you.

There is only one question that sits in the fore front of my mind….
How can a man of Chris’s calibre write such a dark, disturbingly gruesome psychological thriller, but his Author Pic tells a different story…

Thanks go to Bloodhound Books, Chris Thomas and Sarah Hardy for an advanced readers copy of The Edge of Sanity to read and review in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion. Also thanks go to Sarah for allowing me to be part of this amazing Blog Blitz .

Wow! What an amazing follow up to Enter the Dark. I didn't think it was possible, but The Edge of Sanity is even more gruesome in places and Chris Thomas made my stomach clench yet again. You could definitely read The Edge of Sanity as a standalone but it's well worth reading Enter the Dark to understand the background of some of the characters and to fully experience 'The Red Room' that is touched upon in this book.

There is a lot going on in this book which really helped to hold my interest; from kidnapping to human guinea pigs and a huge dollop of revenge that really upped the ante in the anything-could-happen stakes. Chris Thomas has an amazing ability to describe his scenes of torture and brutality in just the right level of detail to get my stomach heaving. That sounds bad but it's a good thing; it shows how invested I was in the book that I felt every kick, punch, bite and cut. If it was a film I would have closed my eyes in horror but I really couldn't tear my eyes away from this wonderfully dark book.

The Edge of Sanity is so realistic that I can totally imagine it happening in real life as junkies look for a bigger and better fix. As they search for their next fix, they have no idea that someone has invented a drug that will rid humanity of drug users whilst at the same time giving these drug users not only the best, but the last, high of their life. Complete the trials to enter the dark web and place your bid now to buy this genocidal wonder-drug.

Fast-paced, gruesome and very dark, The Edge of Sanity is so scarily realistic that it both sickens and thrills.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

I really enjoyed the author’s previous book so I was delighted when I saw that this one was being released – I had read it within hours of downloading it to my Kindle – couldn’t resist!!

I loved the plot line, but just a warning it was quite gruesome and graphic in a few places and that won’t be liked by everyone, but for me I loved it!

The characters were great and I loved their interaction and the suspense that built up, it was certainly a gripping story and I read it in an afternoon as I couldn’t wait to see how it ended!!

Five stars from me – a brilliant thriller that really had me guessing!!

I have not read Enter the Dark, the book that precedes this in the story, but I enjoyed The Edge of Sanity in its own right as a standalone.
Not for the faint-hearted and the Edge of Sanity had me on the edge of my seat.
Slater, a very powerful mobster for me was the most convincing character of the book although it has to be said that all of Chris Thomas's characters had a lot of substance to them.
It was an interesting story and I was not disappointed with the ending.