Summer Of Ghosts by P. D. Viner
Sep. 10th, 2014 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
”Beautiful skin …”
It begins with a father calling his daughter, but it is not his Pia who answers – it is her killer. He must listen, horrified, to the sounds of his only child being murdered, powerless to intervene, as the killer utters two chilling words.
Most men’s thoughts would turn to vengeance, but Pia’s father is far more resourceful than most. He is not the reserved businessman his daughter believed him to be, but Franco, a notorious London drug lord. And he will call in all his debts to find his daughter’s killer, including the one owed to him by Superintendent Tom Bevans.
Tom is a man haunted by grief; every unsolved case weighs heavily against his soul. And Tom has heard those two words before …
It’s June 2011, six months after THE LAST WINTER OF DANI LANCING. Superintendent Tom Bevans has been off duty after an emotional breakdown. Now he’s ready to return to the Ares team but one case has been nagging at him. Three young women were killed between 2006 and 2007, their skin flayed from their bodies and their heads bashed in with a hammer. There was one survivor but the discovery of Marcus Keyson’s activities resulted in Ares being suspended and the case quickly went cold.
When Franco (a notorious London gangster who helped Tom discover what had happened to Dani) is forced to listen to the brutal murder of his daughter, Pia, he calls in the favour that Tom owes him. The only clue to the killer’s identity was the words “beautiful skin” – words that Tom first heard from the survivor of the earlier killings. Forced to join forces with Franco, Tom enlists the help of Dani’s parents and Detective Inspector Jane Thorsen. But reopening an old case also reopens Tom’s emotional wounds and Franco’s quest for revenge forces Tom to question his own actions …
I picked this up without realising that P. D. Viner’s crime thriller is the second in a series. Although Viner recaps events from the first book enough to get the gist, you really need to read book one to get the most out of this because so much of Bevans’s emotional storyline is tied up to the previous events. The plot itself was a little too convoluted for me with so many plot strands running that it was obvious they’d all come together at some point and I guessed some of the twists in advance. I also found the device of using the cold case to tie into ‘current’ events rather clumsy and for me, the pay off didn’t work. However, I did enjoy the complicated relationships here, particularly Jim and Patty’s marriage, which is badly damaged by Patty’s need for revenge. Neither Tom nor Franco quite rang true for me – Tom’s empathy in particular is over-egged and made me wonder how he’d risen to his high rank – and although I did like Franco’s links to the struggle for independence in Zimbabwe, I couldn’t believe that his daughter had no inkling of his true profession. Ultimately, it was an okay read and I’d probably check out the other books in this series.
The Verdict:
I picked this up without realising that P. D. Viner’s crime thriller is the second in a series. Although Viner recaps events from the first book enough to get the gist, you really need to read book one to get the most out of this because so much of Bevans’s emotional storyline is tied up to the previous events. The plot itself was a little too convoluted for me with so many plot strands running that it was obvious they’d all come together at some point and I guessed some of the twists in advance. I also found the device of using the cold case to tie into ‘current’ events rather clumsy and for me, the pay off didn’t work. However, I did enjoy the complicated relationships here, particularly Jim and Patty’s marriage, which is badly damaged by Patty’s need for revenge. Neither Tom nor Franco quite rang true for me – Tom’s empathy in particular is over-egged and made me wonder how he’d risen to his high rank – and although I did like Franco’s links to the struggle for independence in Zimbabwe, I couldn’t believe that his daughter had no inkling of his true profession. Ultimately, it was an okay read and I’d probably check out the other books in this series.
SUMMER OF GHOSTS was released in the United Kingdom on 14th August 2014. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the ARC of this book.
It begins with a father calling his daughter, but it is not his Pia who answers – it is her killer. He must listen, horrified, to the sounds of his only child being murdered, powerless to intervene, as the killer utters two chilling words.
Most men’s thoughts would turn to vengeance, but Pia’s father is far more resourceful than most. He is not the reserved businessman his daughter believed him to be, but Franco, a notorious London drug lord. And he will call in all his debts to find his daughter’s killer, including the one owed to him by Superintendent Tom Bevans.
Tom is a man haunted by grief; every unsolved case weighs heavily against his soul. And Tom has heard those two words before …
It’s June 2011, six months after THE LAST WINTER OF DANI LANCING. Superintendent Tom Bevans has been off duty after an emotional breakdown. Now he’s ready to return to the Ares team but one case has been nagging at him. Three young women were killed between 2006 and 2007, their skin flayed from their bodies and their heads bashed in with a hammer. There was one survivor but the discovery of Marcus Keyson’s activities resulted in Ares being suspended and the case quickly went cold.
When Franco (a notorious London gangster who helped Tom discover what had happened to Dani) is forced to listen to the brutal murder of his daughter, Pia, he calls in the favour that Tom owes him. The only clue to the killer’s identity was the words “beautiful skin” – words that Tom first heard from the survivor of the earlier killings. Forced to join forces with Franco, Tom enlists the help of Dani’s parents and Detective Inspector Jane Thorsen. But reopening an old case also reopens Tom’s emotional wounds and Franco’s quest for revenge forces Tom to question his own actions …
I picked this up without realising that P. D. Viner’s crime thriller is the second in a series. Although Viner recaps events from the first book enough to get the gist, you really need to read book one to get the most out of this because so much of Bevans’s emotional storyline is tied up to the previous events. The plot itself was a little too convoluted for me with so many plot strands running that it was obvious they’d all come together at some point and I guessed some of the twists in advance. I also found the device of using the cold case to tie into ‘current’ events rather clumsy and for me, the pay off didn’t work. However, I did enjoy the complicated relationships here, particularly Jim and Patty’s marriage, which is badly damaged by Patty’s need for revenge. Neither Tom nor Franco quite rang true for me – Tom’s empathy in particular is over-egged and made me wonder how he’d risen to his high rank – and although I did like Franco’s links to the struggle for independence in Zimbabwe, I couldn’t believe that his daughter had no inkling of his true profession. Ultimately, it was an okay read and I’d probably check out the other books in this series.
The Verdict:
I picked this up without realising that P. D. Viner’s crime thriller is the second in a series. Although Viner recaps events from the first book enough to get the gist, you really need to read book one to get the most out of this because so much of Bevans’s emotional storyline is tied up to the previous events. The plot itself was a little too convoluted for me with so many plot strands running that it was obvious they’d all come together at some point and I guessed some of the twists in advance. I also found the device of using the cold case to tie into ‘current’ events rather clumsy and for me, the pay off didn’t work. However, I did enjoy the complicated relationships here, particularly Jim and Patty’s marriage, which is badly damaged by Patty’s need for revenge. Neither Tom nor Franco quite rang true for me – Tom’s empathy in particular is over-egged and made me wonder how he’d risen to his high rank – and although I did like Franco’s links to the struggle for independence in Zimbabwe, I couldn’t believe that his daughter had no inkling of his true profession. Ultimately, it was an okay read and I’d probably check out the other books in this series.
SUMMER OF GHOSTS was released in the United Kingdom on 14th August 2014. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the ARC of this book.
