Expectant (Sam Shephard Book Five) by Vanda Symon

 

Expectant (Sam Shephard Book Five) by Vanda Symon.

Published 16th February 2023 by Orenda Books.

From the cover of the book:

A killer targeting pregnant women.

A detective expecting her first baby…

The shocking murder of a heavily pregnant woman throws the New Zealand city of Dunedin into a tailspin, and the devastating crime feels uncomfortably close to home for Detective Sam Shephard as she counts down the days to her own maternity leave.

Confined to a desk job in the department, Sam must find the missing link between this brutal crime and a string of cases involving mothers and children in the past. As the pieces start to come together and the realisation dawns that the killer’s actions are escalating, drastic measures must be taken to prevent more tragedy.

For Sam, the case becomes personal, when it becomes increasingly clear that no one is safe and the clock is ticking…

***********

When a heavily-pregnant woman is found murdered in an alley, with her baby missing, quiet Dunedin is shocked to the core. It is a crime that hits Detective Sam Shephard hard, being only a few weeks away from the birth of her own child. 

Her boss is keen to keep Sam well away from this investigation, but they need every hand they can get to track down the person capable of such a brutal crime, so she finds herself doing all she can to help from the confines of her desk... and her painstaking work uncovers a trail that paints a picture of someone desperate to achieve their aim by any means necessary.

Sam is sure that the only way to catch this killer will be to make this case even more personal, but has she gone too far this time...

It is a joy to be back with Sam Shephard as she undertakes another investigation, and this story is one that pulls no punches right from the word go, with a crime that grips you with icy fingers around your heart - fingers that do not let you go for the entire story. 

Sam is doing her level best to ignore the fact that she is just about to become a mother, despite the ever increasing baby-bump, but this crime gives her little choice but to examine motherhood in a very intense way. This is a slightly different Sam to the firecracker we are used to, although she has some feisty moments. She is still recovering from the loss of her father, and has to acknowledge that she is a lot more vulnerable than she wants to admit. Naturally, there are fewer busting down of physical doors moments from my favourite New Zealand detective in this story, but her mind is just as active as ever, and this allows her to make headway through the hard graft of sifting information and being guided by her instincts. Along the way she is forced to confront her fears about the unknown territory that awaits her, and how much this momentous event will change her life.

It is rather difficult to tell you how cleverly Vanda Symon shapes this story to delve into very thought provoking subjects without spoilers, but suffice to say that she has Sam gradually uncovering some facts that are highly disturbing on a number of levels. Symon drops her reveals slowly, like a trail of breadcrumbs, giving you just enough to tweak your perception of what is going on here with every morsel you pick up. I was a whisker ahead of Sam just as she gets to the heart of the matter, but even so, the cracking climax still hit me broadside with a deliciously terrifying twist.

I guarantee that this story will set you pondering about whether the ends can ever justify the means, when the whys behind the crime are finally exposed. The obvious answer is a resounding negative, but nevertheless Symon beautifully poses some timely questions about the grey areas that motivate the murderer to act as they do.

This is a book to consume in a single, heart-racing session. It has a particularly visceral impact if you have ever carried a child, and brings back many of the fears of first time motherhood. Sam's character develops in so many unexpected ways in this tale, maturing in a way that cannot fail to change how she see the world in the future. 

I think this is Sam's most emotional story yet, and the conclusion made me shed more than a few tears. I cannot wait to see what Symon has in store for Sam next.

Expectant is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Orenda Books for sending me an ecopy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Vanda Symon lives in Dunedin, New Zealand. As well as being a crime writer, she has a PhD in science communication and is a researcher at the Centre for Pacific Health at the University of Otago. 

Overkill was shortlisted for the 2019 CWA John Creasey Debut Dagger Award and she is a three-time finalist for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel for her critically acclaimed Sam Shephard series. 

Vanda produces and hosts 'Write On', a monthly radio show focusing on the world of books at Otago Access Radio. When she isn’t working or writing, Vanda can be found in the garden, or on the business end of a fencing foil.