Saturday, 16 September 2023

Lucky Number Seven - Alex Smith - DCI Kett Crime Thrillers Book 13.0

Lucky Number Seven
DCI Kett Crime Thrillers Book 13.0
ISBN 9781913877132
ASIN B0C6R69T7T


As always I look forward to new offerings from the pen of Alex Smith, It has been so since reading his YA Furnace Series over a decade ago. I picked up this title on release day but it was also a toss-up as his sister under the pen name K.T. Galloway released book 7 in her O’Malley & Switch series, One Last Breath just days earlier. It was literally a coin toss to see which of the sibling’s volumes would get read first. This one won! It is another excellent volume in a great series. I could hardly put it down. 

The description of this volume is:

“Sometimes You Win. Sometimes You Die.

When seven packages are delivered to the staff of an insurance company in Norwich, the unthinkable happens: one of the packages explodes.

Six people survive, the seventh does not.

As the fire rages and the city reels, DCI Kett and the Extreme Crime Task Force are brought in to try to figure out why anybody would murder an innocent woman in such a violent manner.

But the killer has only just started. Seven more people are targeted, seemingly at random, and it soon becomes clear that somebody is playing a deadly game of chance—if you lose, you lose everything.

The hunt is on for one of the most sadistic criminals the team has ever faced.

Sometimes you beat the odds. Sometimes you don’t.

And Kett knows that sooner or later, everybody’s luck runs out…

Lucky Number Seven is the thirteenth book in the million-selling DCI Robert Kett series. Relentless action, compulsive mystery and dark humour abound in the series that Thrilling Fiction calls "Heart-stoppingly gripping!" from the author that James Patterson describes as "fresh and ferocious!"”

It all starts with a boom. A very big boom, that is the result of a bomb. Kett and the team are chasing theories, but overtime they think they have it narrowed down it seems to be a red herring. And the pace of the incidents is building. Whoever the man in the mask is her has a plan, and has been working on it a long time. He is playing a game of chance with 7 people and 1 is going to be unlucky. The man is the mask is playing the game and forcing people to pick, to draw lots, or straws as it were. One leads to death. The other 6 end up with radically changed lives. 

At first there seems to be no relation between the victims, from round to round. But Something is niggling the back of Kett’s brain. Can Kett and the team figure out the pieces. And trace this back to the source? The team seems to be racking all over the region. With Armed response either following or arriving first. But they keep falling 1 step behind the man in the mask. 

If you have read the other DCI Kett books this one is a must read. If you happen to be a fan of rough and tough action you will almost certainly enjoy this novel. And the other books in the series. This is the fourteenth of the DCI Kett stories that I have read, the fifteenth novel, Kett has also made a brief appearance in The Harder They Fall, the first of the Softley Series of books.

About the author we are informed that:

“Alex Smith wrote his first book when he was six. It wasn’t particularly good, but it did have some supernatural monsters in it. His latest books, the DCI Robert Kett thrillers, have monsters in it too, although these monsters are very human, and all the more terrifying for it. In between these two books he has published thirteen other novels for children and teenagers under his full name, Alexander Gordon Smith—including the number one bestselling series Escape From Furnace, which is loved by millions of readers worldwide and which is soon to become a motion picture. He lives in Norwich with his wife and three young daughters.”

My original introduction to Smith’s works were The Furnace novels many years ago. I have not read everything he has published but much of it. They are almost always edge of your seat thrillers. I still hope that someday he will finally release book 2 is the Softley Softley Series, but until then I am thankful for another read in this dark and gritty series. For some the Kett stories will be the things of nightmares, for others a look at the underside of society. But no matter how you read them they are crime thrillers with a lot of action, great characters and often a significant violence! This one has several new twists and a few surprises for Kett, the team and for us the readers!

Mystery Books as Alex Smith:

Softley Softley Series:
2.0 Hard Luck House
...

DCI Kett Series:
2.0 Bad Dog
3.0 Three Little Pigs

Books By Alexander Gordon Smith:
Escape from Furnace:
Lockdown

Solitary
Death Sentence
Fugitives 
Execution
Execution Epilogue - Short Story
The Night Children - Short Story


Fury Series:
The Fury
The Storm

The Inventors:
The Inventors
The Inventors And The City of Stolen Souls

Non-Fiction:
1001 Questions and Answers
Inspired Creative Writing: 52 Brilliant Ideas from the Master Wordsmiths
The Solar System
Family Quiz
Writing Bestselling Children's Books: 52 Brilliant Ideas for Inspiring Young Readers

















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