Shattered Bones (SOCO Maya Barton Book Two) by Kate Bendelow (Audio Book)

Shattered Bones (SOCO Maya Barton Book Two) by Kate Bendelow.

Narrated by Annabelle Indge.

Released 1st April 2022 by Isis Publishing.

From the cover:

How do you catch a killer if you can’t identify the victim? A scene of crime officer collects the evidence piece by piece in this gritty British mystery.

SOCO Maya Barton is called to a canal where a heavily decomposed male body has been discovered. A bank card belonging to Trevor Dawlish is found in the cadaver’s pocket, and the name matches that of a missing person.

All seems straightforward—until Trevor’s wife phones the police to say that Trevor has returned home, leaving Maya and the team wondering who the unknown male is.

When it’s revealed that the male was dead before he entered the water, Maya finds herself with a murder on her hands. But when another body is discovered, the case becomes further complicated. The hope is that facial reconstruction of the first victim will help solve the mystery—but it may lead Maya and her team down an even darker path.

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The story starts with a gruesome bang as SOCO Maya Barton and her colleagues pull a badly decomposed corpse from a canal. The state of the body makes it hard to identify the dead man, but there is a clue in his pocket - a bank card belonging to a Trevor Dawlish.

Mild-mannered Trevor has been reported missing, and it is possible that this could well be him, but the DNA evidence is confusing and the missing man's wife Bernadette claims to have seen her husband after this man apparently died... So begins a difficult investigation with multiple, twisty strands as Maya and the CSI team, and their CID confederates, attempt to get to the bottom of the Trevor Dawlish case.

 

This is the second book in the Maya Barton series, but can easily be read as a standalone. There are some details about Maya's family circumstances and the relationships between the team members of the various departments that obviously follow on from book one, but it is easy to pick up the threads quite early in this story and the investigation is self-contained.

Unusually, this police procedural is focused on the CSI department and, although there is a lot of interaction with their CID compatriots, it is through the fascinating forensic work of Maya and her team mates that this complex crime is eventually solved. Kate Bendelow is a real life CSI and the depth of her knowledge comes through so well in the detailed descriptions of the methods used to get to the truth in this story. I found it really interesting getting a glimpse of how all the aspects of police investigations work together from a fresh perspective.

But this is not just a straightforward fact finding mission, because there are many elements of human interest to spice things up nicely as you get to know the different characters, especially through the dynamics of the members of the investigating teams. There's plenty of opportunity to get into the nitty-gritty of the rivalries, friendships and flirtations, with lots of banter to inject some dark humour. There's oodles of tension as well, particularly through the story-line of Maya's sinister father who is released from prison after a long stretch for violent crimes, which adds real menace to the proceedings. 

The narrator Isabelle Indge does an excellent job of all the voices and drives the story along at a good pace, carrying you with her through all the twists and turns. This tale was so twisty that I frequently found myself confident in the details of who did what to who, only to find that a new bit of evidence gets uncovered to shatter my illusions, and it was lots of fun to be led all round the houses by Bendelow before all the threads worked themselves out. 

Highly entertaining, slick and intelligent, this story offers something a little bit different for crime fiction fans, and it kept me guessing all the way through!

Shattered Bones is available to buy now in audio, paperback and ebook formats via the link HERE.

About the author:

Kate Bendelow is the author of The Real CSI: A Forensic Handbook for Crime Writers. She also delivers presentations on the same subject to crime writers. 

Bloodhound Books are the publishers behind the SOCO Maya Barton trilogy. It’s crime fiction with a twist, as the main protagonist is a scene of crime office rather than a detective. The first two books in the series are Definitely Dead and Shattered Bones and are perfect for you if you’re interested in forensics crime scene investigation.