Published 29th June 2021 by Thomas and Mercer.
From the cover of the book:
DI Kate Young can’t trust anybody. Not even herself.In the bleak countryside around Blithfield Reservoir, a serial murderer and rapist is leaving a trail of bloodshed. His savage calling card: the word ‘MINE’ carved into each of his victims.
DI Kate Young struggles to get the case moving—even when one of the team’s own investigators is found dead in a dumpster. But Kate is battling her own demons. Obsessed with exposing Superintendent John Dickson and convinced there’s a conspiracy running deep in the force, she no longer knows who to trust. Kate’s crusade has already cost her dearly. What will she lose next?
When her stepsister spills a long-buried secret, Kate realises she’s found the missing link—now she must prove it before the killer strikes again. With enemies closing in on all sides, she’s prepared to do whatever it takes to bring them down. But time is running out, and Kate's past has pushed her to the very edge. Can she stop herself from falling?
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I absolutely loved the first book in this series, An Eye for an Eye (review here) and couldn't wait to get stuck into book two, A Cut for a Cut, to find out more about DI Kate Young and her team.
Just a few short months after Kate's life has been turned upside down after a traumatic shooting incident in a first class carriage, she is back on track with her career having successfully brought down a serial killer with her team in the Eye for an Eye case. She now finds herself pondering how best to proceed in her quest to bring her corrupt superiors to justice, based on all the facts that she has uncovered since her return to work.
Then the call comes in about a new murder for Kate and her team to investigate. The body of a young girl has been found dumped in an industrial waste bin - the victim raped, viciously attacked, and her skin marked with the word 'Mine' cut into her shoulder. Kate and her team get to work to track down the murderer, searching tirelessly for clues to his identity, but there is very little to go on, and as the victim toll rises they just cannot seem to catch a break in the investigation - and Kate is unsure whether this is by accident or malicious interference from further up the command chain.
As the investigation continues, Kate is also trying to build bridges with her stepsister Tilly who has returned to the UK for a visit, with her young son. Tilly's own young life was also scarred by a rape and the current case is dragging up all sorts of painful memories from the past. Kate has a lot on her plate trying to bring down the murdering serial rapist, keeping her own search for the truth alive, and finding time to reconnect with Tilly, who she feels increasingly more protective of. Can she manage to keep so many plates spinning in the air, without succumbing to her own demons?
A Cut for a Cut is much more of a slow burner that the first book in the series, and it necessarily has a different feel to it, because you already know so much about what is going on the background of Kate's life. I should add here that you really do need to have read book one before reading this one, or you will be setting yourself up for some major spoilers.
This time, the case comes together gradually, with lots of detail about how such an investigation gets results through the hours of grinding police work behind the scenes - I found this serves to inject an air of authenticity to the investigation, and it's something that always shines through with a writer that has done their homework. Intriguingly, this is the kind of story where you will find yourself sure that you know the identity of the killer quite early on in the game, and will then spend the entire book second guessing yourself as Wyer lobs numerous tempting twists at you, and plies you with suspicious whispers about a raft of other characters, until you don't know where you are.
As in the first book, I loved the way Wyer weaves Kate's professional and personal lives together, running the delectable thread of Kate's need to find answers to the much wider issues that haunt her in the background of the new case she is working on. All the while she is jumping at shadows and suspicious of dangerous interference from those she intends to eventually bring down, which is so menacing, but it also leads to some fascinating character development in terms of pushing the boundaries of what she is prepared to do to achieve her aim, and it has her forming alliances with some very unexpected characters.
I find myself a little bereft that I have now read the first two books of this cracking series back-to-back and have to wait a while for the next one to find its way into my hot little hands, because they have both been such engrossing reads. Roll on book three - I can't wait to see what Wyer has in store for Kate next!
A Cut for a Cut is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer in paperback, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you for Carol Wyer for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Zoe O'Farrell at Zooloo's Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
novels have sold over 900,000 copies and been translated into nine languages. A move from humour to the dark side in 2017, saw the introduction of popular DI Robyn Carter in Little Girl Lost and proved that Carol had found her true niche. February 2021 saw the release of the first in the much-anticipated new series, featuring DI Kate Young. An Eye For An Eye was chosen as a Kindle First Reads and became the #1 bestselling book on Amazon UK and Amazon Australia.
She currently lives on a windy hill in rural Staffordshire with her husband Mr. Grumpy... who is very, very grumpy. When she is not plotting devious murders, she can be found performing her comedy
routine, Smile While You Still Have Teeth.
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