Truly Madly Deadly
DCI Kett Crime Thrillers Book 15.0
DCI Kett Crime Thrillers Book 15.0
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 did not get to it for a week and then I read in over 2 days and 3 sittings. It is another excellent volume in a great series. I could hardly put it down. I got up very early to start it on it the second day, and stayed up way too late that next night reading.
The description of this volume is:
“Love can be murder …
It’s Valentine’s Day, and DCI Robert Kett and the Extreme Crime Task Force are preparing to join in the romantic celebrations when a shocking confession throws the city into chaos.
A man walks into the police station and admits to brutally murdering his wife.
And he claims somebody else forced him to do it.
Nobody believes his story, but when two more innocent victims vanish, the blood-drenched evidence starts pointing to a killer who gets his kicks by putting devoted couples through an unimaginable trial of terror and torture—turning them against each other in the name of an unsettling local tradition.
Love may be in the air, but death stalks the streets.
And how do you catch a killer who doesn’t actually kill?”
This story hits right from the beginning. Right from the start it is clear someone is play a very sadistic game. But they are playing it with other people’s lives. And with each iteration of the game the stakes go up. Kett and the team are trying to put together these seemingly random selections of victims. They just cannot find a connection and it just does not make any sense. But they must put the pieces together for the crimes are escalating and show no signs of stopping.
The team in this one is struggling to put the pieces together and Clare’s insistence on redicilous nicknames is not helping at all. Neither is his wife’s decision to have a period of celibacy. And when you toss in a bent cop, human trafficking, and other stuff they stumble upon it proves to be a very rough Valentine’s day for Kett and the team.
I actually figured this one out part way through. It is still a pretty dark piece of British Crime fiction. 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 sixteenth of the DCI Kett stories that I have read, the seventeenth novel where Kett makes an appearance. Kett 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 surprises for Kett, the team and for us the readers! It is well worth the read.
Mystery Books as Alex Smith:
Softley Softley Series:
2.0 Hard Luck House
...
...
DCI Kett Series:
0.5 Cry Baby
1.0 Paper Girls
2.0 Bad Dog
3.0 Three Little Pigs4.0 Whip Crack
5.0 Run Rabbit Run
6.0 Stone Cold Dead
8.0 Sweet Briar Rose
9.0 Jaw Breaker
10.0 Knock Knock
11.0 Rat King
12.0 Knuckle Bone
13.0 Lucky Number 7
14.0 Unholy Saints
15.0 Truly Madly Deadly
16.0 ???
...
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
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