ramblingmads

Wiltshire is a county of ancient beauty — rolling chalk downs, wooded valleys and
chocolate-box villages. Famous for its ‘big’ skies and breathtaking scenery, it seems
tranquil. But looks can be deceiving.

Katarina Raslova, a young British archaeologist, is found dead in a secluded cabin on a powerful local landowner’s estate. Her body has been carefully posed.
She looks like an exquisite sculpture. Except for the bruises circling her neck.
The only potential witness is a terrified girl who waited at the scene for the police to arrive. . . then vanished without a trace.

Detective Craig Wild, formerly of the Metropolitan police, is called in to investigate. He quickly discovers there’s no shortage of suspects. An obsessive ex-boyfriend with no alibi. The landowner’s evasive son, who knows more than he’s telling. And someone on the estate is growing something far more deadly than wheat.

Even his own partner, Acting DC Marnie Olsen, has a troubling personal connection to the victim.

Wild is determined to crack the case — and quickly. But this is rural Wiltshire, not inner-city London. Here, everyone knows your business, and miles of countryside offer countless places to hide the truth.

And then another young woman’s body is discovered . . .

Derek Thompson grew up in London and credits the local library with fostering a
lifelong passion for books. As a teen he wrote dreadful poetry and the world’s densest fantasy novel. After a formative year in the US he returned with a lot of debt and a treasure trove of stories. In hindsight it seems like a fair trade.*

Fast-forward to 2008 when he wrote a feature for The Guardian and attended a novel-writing summer school, where the ideas for his debut spy thriller first emerged. He cites film noir as a major influence on his novels with recurring themes of death, truth and secrets. As the saying goes: write about what you know.
After five novels featuring Thomas Bladen, a working class spy in the UK’s Surveillance Support Unit, he began a separate crime mystery series that follows DS Craig Wild – a former Met detective now transferred to leafy Wiltshire.

Derek’s books have been described as snarky (it’s a real word), pared down, and
morally ambiguous. What more could any novelist ask for? Apart from pens — you
can never have too many pens.

*Especially if he can sell the film script.

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My thoughts: It starts with the body of an archaeologist, it ends with a suspect no one had on their list. As the police hunt for a killer, they have plenty of suspects but not the right one as more bodies prove. Who is responsible and why?

The possibility of a Saxon hoard is exciting, but someone has a different plan to hunting for ancient treasures. DS Wild and his colleagues are soon chasing clues all over Wiltshire and beyond. And then there’s their private issues too – Wild gets close to a woman of the cloth, is Marnie jealous or just distracted?

There’s some career rivalry that needs to be resolved, as well as whether Wild is going to be sticking around, but when it becomes clear the answers they’re looking for are a bit more complicated, it’s Wild that might just be able to get to the truth…

Full of twists, cleverly plotted and with engaging characters, this series is fun and interesting, sleepy Wiltshire is a lot more interesting than you might expect…

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

You can change your name. Change your life. But someone knows exactly who you are.

Twenty years ago, Mason Tucker was tried and convicted as the teenager who helped
lure young boys to the serial killer known as the Pied Piper of Peasedale. After serving his twenty-year sentence, Mason is freed and hopes to remain invisible while he rebuilds his life as an adult, hoping to become a man he can be proud of. A new town, a new flat, a new job and a new purpose.

But living with secrets is challenging, and protecting his anonymity, the woman who
stood beside him, and her child becomes impossible when the past pushes back. Hard.

Within days of his release, Mason suspects he’s being stalked. He’s threatened and
twice attacked. He never imagined being outside would be more dangerous than being in prison. The police aren’t an option. One headline will destroy him.
Someone wants him punished, not redeemed, and as danger closes in, you will never suspect where the next threat comes from.

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Heidi Field was raised in the beautiful countryside of the South of England with her parents and her two sisters. In her twenties she was a freelance Sports Massage Therapist. She achieved a Degree in Zoology at the age of thirty and then went on to raise two boys and became the
stepmother of three more young children. She still lives near her family home with her partner, their Great Dane and the children that have yet to fly the nest.

In her early forties Heidi completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Winchester University.
She entered the course hoping she would become a children’s fantasy writer and left with a burning desire to write contemporary mysteries and thrillers.
Heidi wanted to put relatable people in extraordinary situations, challenge them, push them to their limits and watch them fight for their sanity. The Other Boy is her first novel.

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My thoughts: It was interesting to read Mason’s perspective on the events that previously we’ve seen from the point of view of his mum and the parents of his friend Jamie (in The Other Boy and The Other Mother). He was groomed and manipulated, a victim too in many ways, of the same man who murdered all those young boys. But because he appeared to be an accomplice – due to his age, things he probably didn’t tell anyone, and the fact that he survived, he’s spent twenty years in prison.

Released and given a new identity and back story, the rest of his life is his to do with as he pleases. Mess it up, and he’s back inside.

He gets a job, has a flat, makes a few friends, but trouble is coming for him and there’s nothing he seems to be able to do to stop it. Befriending a teenage boy who reminds him of himself attracts attention from the wrong sort of person and unfortunately his true identity might have been uncovered.

Mason tries to steer clear, keep his head down and stay free, but deep down he’s a good person and doesn’t want to let anyone else suffer like he did. His choices aren’t going to make his life better, but they might just help someone else.

There’s a redemption arc here, and Mason has had plenty of time to reckon with his past actions and the awful things that went on in the creepy shack in the woods. We can see that he was targeted and groomed by a monster, but he couldn’t, not at the time, and that’s how things went so badly for him. I don’t think he’s even half as bad as people think, he just didn’t know where to turn and had no support. 

Fascinating to see the differing angles on the same events, how they affected the different characters and impacted their lives, and how they managed, or not, to move on and rebuild. 

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.