Book Review - Hidden Scars by Angela Marsons - Blog Tour

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Title: Hidden Scars

Author: Angela Marsons

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Bookouture

Publication Date: 9th November 2022

Rating: 5 Stars

While Jamie’s cold, lifeless body lay in the morgue, Detective Kim Stone stared at the empty board in the incident room and felt her anger boil. Why were there no photos, details, or lines of enquiry?

When a nineteen-year-old boy, Jamie Mills, is found hanging from a tree in a local park, his death is ruled a suicide. Detective Kim Stone’s instincts tell her something isn’t right – but it’s not her investigation and her temporary replacement is too busy waiting for the next big case to be asking the right questions.

Why would a seemingly healthy boy choose to end his life?

Why does his mother show no sign of emotional distress at the loss of her son?

Still mending her broken mind and body from her last harrowing case, Kim is supposed to be easing back into work gently. But then she finds a crucial, overlooked detail: Jamie had a recent injury that would have made it impossible for him to climb the tree. He must have been murdered.

Quickly taking back charge of her team and the case, Kim visits Jamie’s parents and is shocked to hear that they had sent him to a clinic to ‘cure’ him of his sexuality. According to his mother, Jamie was introverted and prone to mood swings. Yet his friend speaks of a vibrant, outgoing boy.

The clues to smashing open this disturbing case lie behind the old Victorian walls of the clinic, run by the Gardner family. They claim that patients come of their own accord and are free to leave at any time. But why are those that attended the clinic so afraid to speak of what happens there? And where did the faded restraint marks identified on Jamie’s wrists come from?

Then the body of a young woman is found dead by suffocation and Kim makes two chilling discoveries. The victim spent time at the clinic too, and her death was also staged to look like a suicide.

Scarred from an ordeal that nearly took her life, is Kim strong enough to stop a terrifying killer from silencing the clinic’s previous patients one by one?

A compulsive page-turner that will have your heart hammering in your chest and leave you absolutely reeling when you discover the explosive final twist. If you’re a fan of Karin Slaughter, Val McDermid, and Robert Dugoni, you’ll love Hidden Scars.

Can be read as a standalone.

Utterly brilliant, as fabulous as I have come to expect from this author and series. 

And it's not afraid to tackle a tricky topic, in an eye opening way. The methods that clinics use to try to persuade people that they are straight are horrific, sickening and make for tough reading at times, as DI Kim Stone discovers a link between such a clinic and some victims whose deaths were staged as suicides. 

Watching this investigation take place, it must have at time been as tough for the author to write as it was to read, and what is truly scary is that it's based on reality, these places I believe do exist and the people that run them are the sorts that should have died out with the dinosaurs, their views are that pre-historic. 

Set a few months after the previous book, we see Kim returning to work, and at least initially this had a slightly different vibe to previous stories, as I wasn't sure if Kim was really up to much.  What was also despicable is how her team has been treated in her absence, especially the nasty piece of work that took over in charge of the team. 

From start to finish this book played on my mind and I think will stick with me for a time to come. It is another incredibly addictive story, in this ridiculously brilliant series, that I just can't get enough of I already want to read the next book, and just impressed that even after 17 books the quality is still so impressively high. 

A must read not just for fans of the series, but also for everyone just due to the subject matter that is at the heart of it. 

Thank you to Bookouture and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily