“So far, apart from just a couple of hitches, Plan A was working out fine. Which was fortunate, since they didn’t really have a Plan B.”

Dead Simple
By Peter James

The novel opens with five friends drunk and celebrating their friend’s upcoming wedding. Michael Harrison is successful and charming but he’s been known to play some epic practical jokes on his friends and this time his friends are finally getting back at him. They leave him buried alive with just a breathing tube, whiskey and a two-way radio.

They take off intending to drink some more and let Michael get a taste of his own medicine but they are involved in a head-on crash and three of the men die while the other ends up in a coma. Now Michael is trapped and no one, not even his beautiful fiancée, Ashely, know where he is.

Detective Roy Grace is called in to look for the missing groom and at first figures he might just have ended up drunk somewhere else but he is not returning his calls or those of Ashley. When Grace finally meets Mark, best man and Michael’s business partner, he becomes suspicious that Mark wouldn’t know what the group was planning for the bachelor party or where Michael might be. Conveniently Mark was also out of town away on business.

The wedding hour is drawing near and no groom appears. As Grace continues the questioning he begins to think that foul play is involved and he doesn’t quite trust that everyone is telling the truth about Michael.

I loved that this one was a page-turner. Just as you think you know what is going on, a new bombshell is dropped and you can’t wait to keep on reading to find out what next. I really liked Detective Grace and this is a series I plan to continue as I want to learn more about the demons that drive Grace and if we find out more about the missing woman in his life.

Source: Personal Copy

“Rose looked up at the hotel, wishing she’d been allowed to save the image on her phone, that it wasn’t against the rules. This was definitely the place – although, as with everything in her life, she retained a niggle of doubt.”

The Blissfully Dead
By Louise Voss & Mark Edwards

The popular boy band, OnTarget, is drawing record crowds of teen girls to their concerts. All girls dream about meeting the singers and a killer will use the girls’ vulnerability to attack. Detective Inspector Patrick Lennon is called to a London hotel room after the body of one girl is found. The young victim was tortured and DI Lennon will do everything he can to bring a killer to justice.

But it isn’t until the second body of a young girl is found in nearly the same way as the first that the police are able to make a connection to the group OnTarget. The problem will be how to find the next target when there are so many girls who follow the band.

DI Lennon is also dealing with a lot of pressure at home as his wife has been released from a mental hospital. She had been taken in for trying to strangle their six month old baby. DI Lennon is unsure of how he feels and if he is willing to trust his wife again and rebuild their life.

As with a lot of police procedurals there are the internal office politics to deal with and another officer who is the thorn in Lennon’s side but this helps add more complexity to the story. The authors also had quite a few good red herrings to keep this reader guessing about the killer’s identity.

Perhaps the part I liked best about this book is that the premise felt like it could be real. Boy bands have had very successful marketing campaigns but now with social media you another way in which fans can come together mostly for good but this is a good reminder to be aware.

Overall the storyline had good pacing, like I mentioned, a few red herrings that did manage to keep me guessing about the killer’s identity and overall a main character who I found vulnerable and quite likeable. I would definitely look for another entry in this series.

Source: Advance Review Copy