Margate, on England’s south coast. The hottest day of the year.
A derelict warehouse on an industrial estate. A woman claws desperately at the
smooth, unbroken walls of a steel shipping container as it slowly fills with water.
She has six hours to live.
Her husband gets a chilling message on his phone: Drown The Rats. And a map. He
races to the site. He sees his wife struggling for life . . .
Police Constable Abigail Morton is in her twenties, can’t find a man she wants to
keep, and has just resigned after being passed over for promotion. Her special talent is getting people to talk to her, making her perfect for the role of source handler.
The one detective she really respects is DCI Paul Cotterill. And Abigail is the one
person Cotterill needs in this case. When she gets the call from him, she’s back in.
Charlie Gallagher was a serving UK police officer for thirteen years. During that time he had many roles — starting as a front-line response officer, he became a member of a specialist tactical team and finally a detective investigating serious offences. Charlie left to concentrate
on writing full time.
My thoughts: This was a really interesting and fascinating case, death by drowning is apparently incredibly unpleasant, your body desperately tries to fight it. I cannot imagine what watching someone you love die in that way, but that is what happens here.
The police are at a loss, the victims were connected to their covert intelligence unit – passing on information about criminals they happen to be in the orbit of. But someone is clearly unhappy about this and is determined to stop them. It looks like there’s a leak in the unit, so the team have been suspended. At the end of his wits, their boss DCI Paul Cotterill calls on Abigail Morton – freshly resigned from the police, to help him.
I really like Abigail, she’s clever and resourceful, knows her own mind and has become frustrated after being passed over for promotion in the very team that needs her help. She’s not impressed with Cotterill’s methods, but she is intrigued by the case.
As these two cops attempt to get to the bottom of these awful deaths, find the leak and prevent another person from being killed, they come into contact with a strange man who commits the same crime repeatedly in order to get into police custody. He might hold the key to the whole case.
Gripping and intelligent stuff, I wanted more immediately. Abigail is a really interesting character and I would like to see what happens next for her.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 