This review is written with thanks to Bookouture for my copy of Broken Bones via Netgalley.

Blurb:

They thought they were safe. They were wrong.

The murder of a young prostitute and a baby found abandoned on the same winter night signals the start of a disturbing investigation for Detective Kim Stone – one which brings her face to face with someone from her own horrific childhood.

As three more sex workers in the Black Country are murdered in quick succession, each death more violent than the last, Kim and her team realise that the initial killing was no one-off frenzied attack, but a twisted serial killer preying on the vulnerable.

At the same time, the search begins for the desperate woman who left her new-born baby at the station – but what at first looks like a tragic abandonment soon takes an even more sinister turn.

When another young woman goes missing, the two investigations bring the team into a terrifying, hidden world, and a showdown puts Kim’s life at risk as secrets from her own past come to light.

As Kim battles her own demons, can she stop the killer, before another life is lost?

A gripping crime thriller from the Number One bestseller – you will be hooked until the final jaw-dropping twist.

Review:

I haven’t read a Detective Kim Stone novel for far too long but I loved being back in the fold! Angela Marsons has created characters in Kim Stone and her team who feel like family, and I loved catching up with them. I love the banter and the friendship between Kim, Bryant, Kev and Stacey and I love that they are such well developed characters with arcs that have continued across the series.

Angela Marsons knows exactly how to get my pulse racing! Her writing is snappy and fast paced and I was gripped from the very beginning. She does spend a bit of time laying the groundwork for two separate cases, but this doesn’t slow the story down in any way and it is worth it when all the clues come together as I was in awe at how cleverly it was done. I loved the tension, particularly towards the end.

Although Broken Bones was published in 2017, the issues that Angela Marsons raises in the novel are still very relevant seven years later. Whilst I was reading, i immediately felt sympathy for the victims, both for the struggles they had encountered in life and the horrific nature of their deaths. Most of the suspects also made my skin crawl. My reactions to these characters made the issues seem much more real to me and I was hooked as everything unravelled, hoping that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.

I’ve got a lot of catching up to do and I promise I won’t leave it so long until the next one!

Broken Bones is available from Amazon.