Happy St Patrick’s Day and publication day to Kevin McManus and New Blood. Today I’m sharing my first post for the SpellBound St Patrick’s Day blog tour. My review is written with thanks to Zoe O’Farrell and the team at SpellBound Books for inviting me on the tour and for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

It’s murder out there… The body of an unknown man has been discovered on a beach in the cold light of day, a body that has been shot and left to bleed out on the sand.

Detective Inspector Ray Logue, still reeling from the events of his last case, is brought in to investigate. While working the case, he is drawn into the maelstrom of gang warfare as he comes face to face with the ‘New Blood’ – a young gang leader called Kyle Brody who is fast making a name for himself.

Brody is lawless. He is a predator and a thug who takes no mercy on those who stand in his way, seemingly rejecting society and taking pride in causing anarchy .
Dealing, smuggling and murdering are Brody’s trades – he’s good at them and from the wounds inflicted on the body Logue sees, it looks like he takes pleasure in cruelty.

Yet as more details emerge about Brody’s accomplices, Logue realises that the lines between good and evil are not always clear.

There’s a storm brewing… Set in Ireland at the peak of the Celtic Tiger era, New Blood is a dark story of murder, greed and misplaced loyalties.

Review:

It was good to be back with Logue and his working partner, McGarry for this investigation. McManus has developed their characters really well over the series and I love how, despite having quite different personalities, they bounce off each other and there is plenty of dark humour in these books. I also found that although their methods were unorthodox in places, I trusted them to get to the bottom of a difficult situation. 

New Blood is a relatively short book and so it needs to pack a punch from the get go, which it certainly does. I was drawn in from the beginning and I was intrigued to see how all the questions would be answered. There is so much tension and a definite sense of danger which had me on the edge of my seat! 

The plot of New Blood is more complex than its predecessors and I enjoyed the surprises along the way. McManus has plotted this story really well and I was keen to see what direction it would take. 

I hope there is more to come from Logue and McGarry in the future! 

There is a short story at the end of the main story, which I also enjoyed.

New Blood is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: