Review - Quieter than killing by Sarah Hilary

Quieter than killing by Sarah Hilary

Publisher: Headline
Release date: 9 March 2017
Rating: *****

back cover blurb: Sometimes staying silent is the only way to survive. 'You only ever ask that. Why did I do it? You never ask what they did.' The winter cold is biting, and a series of assaults is pulling DI Marnie Rome and DS Noah Jake out into the frosty, mean streets of London far more than they'd like. The attacks seem random, but when Marnie's family home is ransacked, there are signs that the burglary can have only been committed by a child - and someone who knows all about her. It will take a prison visit to her foster brother, Stephen, to help Marnie see the connections - and to force both her and Noah to face the truth about the creeping, chilling reaches of a troubled upbringing. For how can a damaged child really leave their past behind them?

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure how she does it, but somehow each of Sarah Hilary's novels surpasses the one before. Quieter than killing is the fourth instalment in the DI Marnie Rome series. They can be read alone, but I would recommend you get your hands on the others if you can - purely because they are so good!

A series of violent attacks has left two people seriously injured and another dead. All have previous criminal convictions so it seems an easy enough case for Rome and Jake. Find the vigilante, arrest them, job done.

If only....

When Marnie Rome's former family home is attacked, her tenants left badly beaten, it appears that there may be links to Marnie's foster brother, Stephen. But he is safely behind bars having committed a heinous crime years earlier.

 

Marnie reluctantly pays Stephen a visit, and gets more than she bargained for. Everything is pointing to his involvement, and when she questions him around this, he tells her that she needs to start looking closer to home.

 

His suggestion is ludicrous to Marnie, what he is proposing happened, that led him to his original crime. But with a murder investigation underway, and very little to go on, Marnie is forced to take into account every single thing she is told.

 

Whether she believes it to be true or not...

 

Quieter than killing allows us to get closer to Rome and Jake than we have been previously allowed, and what we already know about them is reiterated. They are both equally determined to come to the right result no matter whether that means compromising relationships, colleagues opinions of them, or having sleepless nights.

 

They are the ultimate team. And thank goodness they are for the case they are tasked with solving in this novel. Equally chilling (in more ways than one) and thrilling, Quieter than killing is possibly my favourite Sarah Hilary novel yet, and that ending?! Well, I literally cannot wait for book Five!

Quieter Than Killing is available from 9 March 2017.
 

You can pre-order it now via Amazon online.

Thank you to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
 

Review: Tastes Like Fear by Sarah Hilary

Tastes Like Fear by Sarah Hilary

Publisher:  Headline

Release date: 7 April 2016

Rating: *****

Back cover blurb: Home is where Harm lies...  The young girl who causes the fatal car crash disappears from the scene. A runaway who doesn't want to be found, she only wants to go home. To the one man who understands her. Gives her shelter. Just as he gives shelter to the other lost girls who live in his house. He's the head of her new family. He's Harm. And when Harm's family is threatened, Marnie Rome is about to find out that everything tastes like fear...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah Hillary has done it again. Written a brilliant thriller that keeps you guessing right up until its climax.

The third in Hilary’s Marnie Rome series, Tastes Like Fear could easily be read as a standalone novel. But why would you want to do that when the previous two are so good?

When a young girl crosses the road straight in front of a car, causing a major traffic accident, Marnie and her team are bought in to investigate the possibility that the girl could be one of their missing persons.

May Beswick has been missing for 12 weeks, leaving her parents and younger distraught and fearing the worst. But she isn’t the girl who stepped in front of the car eyewitnesses are sure.

The girl they describe is a walking skeleton, a scared feral creature who may be in danger.

When a young murder victim turns up on their patch, DI Rome and her colleague DS Noah Jake assumes it’s the girl from the accident, but when they turn up and discover May’s body they are immediately struck at the oddness of the crime scene.

Just who and what are they dealing with?

When another body turns up in a very different setting to the one before, the pair are baffled but convinced that they are looking for the same person, despite the differences.

As the traffic accident and the murders become clearly interlinked, the police realise that they may be dealing with something quite different to what they were first anticipating.

Making unpleasant reading at times, Tastes Like Fear may be my favourite Marnie Rome novel so far.

Sarah Hilary knows how to touch on some pretty disturbing subjects with just the right amount of detail. She is fast becoming a master of her craft, and I cannot wait for her next novel.

 

Tastes Like Fear is available from 7 April 2016.

You can pre-order it now via Amazon online and Headline.

 

    Thank you to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Someone Else's Skin by Sarah Hilary

Someone Else's Skin by Sarah Hilary

Publisher: Headline

Release Date: 27 February 2014
Rating:****

Back Cover Blurb: Some secrets keep you safe, others will destroy you... Detective Inspector Marnie Rome. Dependable; fierce; brilliant at her job; a rising star in the ranks. Everyone knows how Marnie fought to come back from the murder of her parents, but very few know what is going on below the surface. Because Marnie has secrets she won't share with anyone. But then so does everyone. Certainly those in the women's shelter Marnie and Detective Sergeant Noah Jake visit on that fateful day. The day when they arrive to interview a resident, only to find one of the women's husbands, who shouldn't have been there, lying stabbed on the floor. As Marnie and Noah investigate the crime further, events begin to spiral and the violence escalates. Everyone is keeping secrets, some for survival and some, they suspect, to disguise who they really are under their skin. Now, if Marnie is going to find the truth she will have to face her own demons head on.    

                                                                       Because the time has come for secrets to be revealed...

 

Described as 'the Crime debut of the year', Someone Else's Skin is the debut novel from Sarah Hilary. It's the second crime debut novel I've read so far this year, which as a Crime fiction fan makes me very happy. Its so wonderful to read the new talent that is about!

Someone Else's Skin opens with the main protagonist Detective Inspector (DI) Marnie Rome arriving home one day to the untimely death of her parents who have been brutally murdered. Fast forward Five years and she is investigating an attempted murder at a Women's shelter with her colleague Detective Sergeant (DS) Noah Jake.

Rome and Jake had been sent to question a young girl to try and persuade her to give evidence against those who had made a horrific attack on her. They know she is unlikely to give them what they want as she is scared and vulnerable, yet very loyal to the family members that inflicted harm on her.

Their original task is soon forgotten when they find Leo Procter fighting for his life at the hands of his wife Hope. Leo is taken to Hospital separately from his wife, who is to be examined by Doctors to determine the extent of abuse she has suffered at her husband's hands. It seems to be a clear cut case of self defence.

But why would Leo bring a knife to a women's shelter? How did he get in? What exactly did he want?

These are questions that you will be asking yourself, which are largely answered by the author. Or so you think.

There is a brilliant twist at the end of Part One of Someone Else's Skin. I don't want to give anything away, but I certainly didn't see it coming, and I read a lot of crime!

Someone Else's Skin will leave you desperately wanting more, and I can't wait to see the return of Rome and Jake ...

 

Someone Else's Skin is available from 27 February 2014.

You can pre-order it now  from Amazon and Headline.

    Thank you to the Publishers who approved my request on Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.