Book Review - Bad Blood by Angela Marsons - Blog Tour

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Title: Bad Blood

Author: Angela Marsons

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Bookouture 

Publication Date: 15th November 2023

Rating: 5 Stars

The victim is lying under the trees, arms lifted above his head, unnaturally still. His muscles are slack. His eyes are empty. There are no signs of life. But he is not quite dead…

When Detective Kim Stone races to the crime scene, there is no body waiting for her: the paramedics are desperately trying to save the victim’s life. But there is something very strange about the way the man was found, his arms raised above his head, his legs spread apart. When he dies on the way to the hospital, Kim is certain she’s on the hunt for a killer… but all evidence at the scene has been destroyed.

The dead man, Eric Gould, seems ordinary, until the team dig into his past. As a teenager, he was locked away for attacking his girlfriend, and Kim suspects he was hurting his fiancé now. Was someone trying to stop history repeating?

Then another man is found on the verge of death, his bones broken to force him into an unnatural shape. The team realise the killer is sending a message – the victims’ bodies are spelling out their sins. As boys, they were both part of a group of six who bragged about their terrible crimes. But they were children then, and when she sees the grief on the faces of their loved ones now, Kim swears to find answers.

Is someone finally getting revenge… or do they think these men are still dangerous? The killer is threatening to strike again, and the only way Kim can crack the case is by tracking down the rest of the six first.

But then a revelation about what one of her team is suffering makes Kim understand why people take the law into their own hands. Do these victims deserve what’s coming to them? Or is there even more to fear from their brutal killer?

Unputdownable from start to finish, Bad Blood is a brilliantly gripping crime thriller with a reveal you’ll never see coming. Fans of Karin Slaughter, Robert Dugoni and Val McDermid will love the latest compulsive read from multi-million-copy bestseller Angela Marsons.

After waiting many months for the resolution of the previous book's rather annoying cliffhanger, to me the main story of this book was Stacy's storyline.  I was incredibly invested in everything that was happening to her, and on revealing the truth of the situation, how her loved ones were dealing with the knowledge. 

And when things take a turn, it allows us as readers to see just how much Kim really does care for her team even if she is rather let's say unhappy and call it a gross understatement, and the decisions she amazingly tempted to make as a result of the depth of those feelings. 

But since this subplot isn't mentioned in the blurb I can't really say anything else on it, other than I found it possibly even more gripping than the main storyline on this instance, probably because it affected a character I care for. 

And it's for these reasons that I think that if you haven't already been following this amazing series from the start (and if not where have you been, other than missing out?), then I feel you at least need to read the previous book to make this one make sense fully.  

As always I was totally addicted to this story, and knew when I was reading the what I thought was the last 20% on the tube, that I would be in danger of missing my stop. Instead I was left slightly annoyed that I hadn't just finished it at home, as the book finished on 89% and the rest if promotional stuff - at least that's the case on the advance copy I read, it may be different on the finished versions.  But honestly though I had more story, more book left, and I was disappointed that I finished so soon. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the main plot as outlined in the blurb. I hadn't figured out most of it, and there were a couple of surprisingly comic moments.  Early on I was reminded of the Friends episode "The one where Nana dies twice" as there was some confusion at the first crime scene. 

I was also very interested in seeing just how the murderer was attempting to make things as hard as possible for the police, even going as far as to use social media to ask the public to cause disruptions.  Which I definitely haven't seen before. 

And the more I see of Penn the more I warm to him, and he is so loveably clueless when it comes to some things, while being amazingly focused at this job. 

It's another ridiculously impressive instalment in this long running series and as always I can't believe I'm going to have to wait for what feels like forever for the next book.  I'm begging you Angela, please write faster! 

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