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Author: Angela Marsons
Format reviewed: Ebook
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: 25th May 2023
Rating: 5 Stars
The woman’s bright blonde hair floats in the breeze. She almost looks like she could be resting on the soft green grass. But her brown eyes stare unblinking up at the sky, and the final cut across her mouth is dark with blood. Her words silenced forever…
Late one evening, as the final church bell rings out, Sandra Deakin’s cold and lifeless body is found in the overgrown graveyard with multiple stab wounds. When Detective Kim Stone rushes to the scene, the violence of the attack convinces her that this murder was deeply personal. What could have caused such hate?
As the team dig into Sandra’s life, they discover she believed she could communicate with the dead. Was that why she was targeted? The last people to see her alive were a group of women who had a session with her the night before she was killed, and as Kim and her team pay them a visit, they soon learn each of the women is lying about why they wanted Sandra’s help…
Kim realises she must dig deep and open her mind to every avenue if she’s going to stand a chance at solving this case. And when she learns that Sandra was banned from the church grounds and had been receiving death threats too, she’s ever more certain that Sandra’s gifts are at the heart of everything.
But just when she thinks she’s found a lead, the broken body of a nineteen-year-old boy is found outside a call centre – a single slash across his mouth just like Sandra’s. Kim knows they are now racing against time to understand what triggered these attacks, and to stop a twisted killer.
But they might be too late. Just as Kim sits down at a local psychic show she discovers something that makes her blood run cold. Both Sandra and the call centre were named in an article about frauds. And this show stars the next name on the list. She looks around the audience with a feeling of utter dread, certain the killer is among them…
Totally addictive with a final twist that will leave you shouting out loud, you’ll want to inhale Deadly Fate in one sitting. Fans of Karin Slaughter, Val McDermid and Robert Dugoni will love the new crime thriller from the number one multi-million-copy bestselling author Angela Marsons.
How dare this book finish like it did. I completely despite cliffhangers even of the gentle sort, after reading 18 books of the series i'm blatantly going to want to read the next one regardless, but now I want it immediately which is a slight problem as well it's not available yet!
But with that ending, I need to know what happens next!
Oh don't worry the main storyline in this book was wrapped up, and I completely didn't predict it in the slightest and it was completely and utterly brilliant as I have come to expect, but I need to know what happens next in a sub plot that clearly wasn't concluded neatly, and given the story ended at 90% I honestly thought there was going to be more!
Besides triggering two of my pet hates, cliffhangers and books that finish before at least 95% on the kindle... I can't actually fault this story at all.
It was an absolute joy to be back with Kim Stone and her team, and I was completely hooked from the first few pages on their latest case.
And it was an absolutely fascinating one, as the first victim believed she was a psychic and so Kim is determined to try to understand more about how psychics work, what techniques are at play, while not all of her team seem as skeptical as she is. The experts she talks to, I was hooked on what they were saying, especially about the simple but skilled ways a psychic may work.
Equally she speaks to some people in the course of the investigation that almost had me believing in them, but at least I was able to understand despite my own skepticism just why people enjoy a psychic.
But if that case isn't enough, over the course of the book, she also has Penn looking into trying to identify a John Doe, which triggered it's own line of investigation for various reasons, and then there is another case that Kim is determined should be looked at in case the team can somehow solve it.
I love how Kim has developed over the course of the series so far, she seems to have softened slightly and her compassion for some people has definitely improved, and her sense of justice is as strong as ever.
It's another completely brilliant addition to this cracking series, I am though starting to wish I could chain Angela Marsons to her computer and not let her do anything else until she gives us the next book, as one book at a time is never enough. I am a Kim Stone addict!
Thank you to Bookouture and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
