Book Review: DEADLY CRY by Angela Marsons

 

             ABOUT THE BOOK

DEADLY CRY 

by 

Angela Marsons

You have to stop me from hurting anyone else. I don’t want to do these horrible things. Help me before I’m forced to do it again. And I will do it again because I have no choice. I’ve never had a choice.

In a busy shopping centre, a little girl clutches a teddy bear, clinging to it in the absence of her mother, Katrina. Hours later, Katrina’s body is discovered in an abandoned building. For Detective Kim Stone, it looks like a quick, functional murder. But Kim’s instincts tell her there’s more to this senseless murder than meets the eye. What was the motive for killing a young mother out shopping with her child?

Days later, a second victim is found in a local park, her neck broken just like Katrina’s and her six-year-old son missing.

But with her colleague, Detective Stacey Wood, working on another unsolved crime and a member of the team grieving the loss of a close relative, Kim is struggling to make inroads on what is fast becoming a complex case. And when a handwritten letter from the killer lands on Kim’s desk addressed to her, and pleading for help, she knows time is running out to bring the little boy home alive.

With the support of a handwriting analyst and profiler, Kim and the team begin to get inside the mind of the killer and make a shocking discovery.

Some of the victims have scratch marks on their wrists.

But these are no random scratches. The killer is using them to communicate with someone. The question is… with whom?

And if Kim doesn’t find them soon, another innocent soul will die.

MY THOUGHTS

I figured out the obvious solution for the wedding cake dilemma before the team did! Go me! Too bad Stacey’s wedding cake was not the main focus of this book. Okay, silly stuff over; let’s get into the latest instalment of Angela Marsons’ fabulous D.I. Kim Stone series.

In DEADLY CRY, Kim and the team are having a slow week when thing swiftly ramp up: three murders in as many days, and a missing child. As if that’s not enough, Kim’s been ordered to consult on security arrangements for a visiting D list celebrity.

There’s a lot of information to wade through, and with our offender(s) communicating to Kim there are more deaths to come, time is of the essence. Marsons employs her customary short, sharp chapters making the action flit quickly between scenes and characters, and keeping us readers on our toes.

One thing I like about police procedurals in general is the opportunity to better get to know regular characters. Marsons does this incredibly well, and with each book I care enough to want to know about what’s they’re all up to. In DEADLY CRY, we see a different Kim; she seems to have loosened a little the reigns she holds on herself and others. This leads to some questionable professional behaviour on her part but it also allows her team to play to their strengths and lets them shine; in this book, Stacey in particular.

Sure enough, the guilty are caught, and as the whys unfold, it really made me reflect on what complex emotional beings humans are.

Here’s to the baker’s dozen of D.I. Kim Stone books! I eagerly await number fourteen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I discovered my love of writing at Primary School when a short piece on the rocks and the sea gained me the only merit point I ever got. I wrote the stories that burned inside and then stored them safely in a desk drawer.

After much urging from my partner I began to enter short story competitions in Writer’s News resulting in a win and three short listed entries. I self-published two of my earlier works before concentrating on my true passion – Crime.

After many, many submissions I signed an 8 book deal with Bookouture as their first crime author.

I live in the Black Country with my partner, our bouncy Labrador and potty-mouthed parrot. 

http://angelamarsons-books.com/