A Life For A Life ( Detective Kate Young Book Three) by Carol Wyer

 

A Life for a Life (Detective Kate Young Book Three) by Carol Wyer.

Published 16th March 2022 by Amazon Publishing.

From the cover of the book:

Nobody can get into the mind of an erratic killer—except an unpredictable detective.

When a young man is found lying on a station platform with a hole in his head, DI Kate Young is called in to investigate the grisly murder. But the killing is no one-off. As bodies start to pile up, she is faced with what might be an impossible task—to hunt down a ruthless killer on a seemingly random rampage.

Meanwhile, Kate has her own demons to battle as she struggles to come to terms with her husband’s death. And she is hell-bent on exposing corruption within the force and bringing Superintendent John Dickson to justice. But with the trail of deception running deeper—and closer to home—than she could ever have imagined, she no longer knows who she can trust.

With her grip on reality slipping, Kate realises that maybe she and the killer are not so different after all. But time is running out and Kate is low on options. Can she catch the killer before she loses everything?

***********

DI Kate Young is still struggling to get her life on track following the death of her husband Chris, and it seems peace is not going to be coming her way any time soon. Kate's secret crusade to bring down her corrupt boss Superintendent John Dickson seems to be hitting brick walls and the valuable eye-witness she needs has disappeared like a ghost - hopefully they have gone into hiding rather than having been consigned to a grave...

Just as Kate starts despair that she will ever be able to come to terms with Chris' death, a new case demands the attention of her and her small team. A young man has been found dead on a station platform, brutally killed by a point-blank shot to the head, and there are very few leads to go on. Before long, more bodies start to pile up, each one killed in the same brutal way, but there are no links between them and it is very hard to track down a killer who appears to be acting at random.

As Kate starts to drown under the pressure of an investigation that is going nowhere, and the shock of a new discovery in her inquiry into corruption in the police force, it dawns on her that her own fragile mental state might be just the tool she needs to find the killer. Can she succeed before her personal and professional lives come crashing down?

A Life for a Life is the third book in the Detective Kate Young crime series, and it certainly lives up the promise of the books that have come before. At the start of this story, Kate's quest to hold to account all those responsible for the death of her husband has gone just about as far as it can go, and she is spiralling downwards once more without the sense of purpose her private investigation has given her. When a new case that seems impossible to crack lands on her desk, bringing her unbearable pressure from the very man she has been trying to topple, Superintendent Dickson, it appears she might finally succumb to the darkness that plagues her... but all is not lost. It is the very fact that Kate herself knows what it means to face despair that proves to be the key to unlocking this investigation - even if the reasons why she can identify with the killer cannot be shared with her team.

Talking of Kate's team, there are some very interesting developments in this department as we get to know a bit more about them, with the hint of a possible will-they-won't-they romance in the air, and an intriguing understanding developing between one person in particular who Kate has been very wary of up until now which helps her to confirm some of her suspicions about Dickson. I always love how Wyer portrays the police procedural side of her stories, and this tricky case gives them a lot of work to do.

As to be expected in Wyer's very tense crime thrillers she takes us all round the houses before the truth becomes clear about the current case, dropping in a sinister side plot with an unsettling Stephen King-esque character that I can see making an appearance again in the future, and the suspense builds nicely towards a gripping climactic scene that had me holding my breath. But it doesn't end there, because there has to be a slap in the face development in Kate's corruption inquiry too, and my goodness this one is an absolute stunner... as cliffhangers go, this is high stakes and as jaw-dropping as they come, and I cannot wait to see what Wyer has up her sleeve for the next book! 

Another first-class crime thriller from Carol Wyer, with everything to keep lovers of the genre very happy indeed!

A Life for a Life is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Buy kinks: Amazon UK     Amazon US

Thank you to Carol Wyer for sending me a paperback copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Zooloo's Book Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

USA Today bestselling author and winner of The People's Book Prize Award, Carol Wyer's crime novels have sold over one million 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.

Carol has had articles published in national magazines 'Woman's Weekly', featured in 'Take A Break', 'Choice', 'Yours' and 'Woman's Own' magazines and the Huffington Post. She's also been interviewed on numerous radio shows discussing ''Irritable Male Syndrome' and 'Ageing Disgracefully' and on BBC Breakfast television.

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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