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Summer Of Ghosts by P. D. Viner
Sep. 10th, 2014 10:33 pmThe 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 …
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
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 …
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
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.
