Today I’m pleased to be taking part in the blog tour for The Hashtag Killer. My review is written with thanks to Rachel Gilbey at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me on the tour and to the publisher for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

DI Jen Flowers thought she’d seen it all after fifteen years on the force, but when a vigilante serial killer hits the city and uses social media to gather supporters, she must fight the public and her doubts to catch a murderer and save her daughter.

Suffering from blackouts and abandoned as a child by her father, Ruby Vasquez has been chasing that one scoop to make her an internet star. Living with an alcoholic mother who hates her, Ruby discovers a secret about the vigilante’s first victim, which puts her in the killer and DI Flowers’ sights.

Jen and Ruby have to overcome the secrets in their past while battling each other to discover the Hashtag Killer’s identity. Jen will have to choose between keeping her daughter safe or finding a killer, while Ruby will need to decide if becoming famous is more important than doing the right thing.

Review:

I always enjoy meeting a new detective and I was looking forward to meeting Detective Inspector Jen Flowers and her team. I loved the way she used her instincts and put herself on the line to catch some truly horrible people. However, for me, it was her relationship with her daughter, Abigail, that really made her stand out to me. I’ve read a lot of police procedural where detectives and their children are like ships in the night, but Jen and Abigail seemed much closer than this and I enjoyed getting to know them, especially as the plot gathered pace. There are a few hints to things that happened in Jen’s past that have shaped her views and relationships and I am looking forward to finding out more about these as the series continues. 

The plot of The Hashtag Killer feels very modern, with a strong focus on cyber crime and the influence of social media. The technology is not something I could ever master myself but I found it interesting to see how it could be used by both criminals and detectives. 

The Hashtag Killer is written from several different perspectives, which allows the reader to understand the case better and sometimes means that we are given information before the characters. However, in places, this did make the novel feel a little disjointed as it was not immediately obvious whose perspective I was reading. 

The ending of The Hashtag Killer is definitely tense and I wanted to know how the case would be resolved. I did have an inkling who the killer was, but I was still engaged as Jen and her team searched for the answers. 

The Hashtag Killer is available from Amazon.

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