Blog Tour: Deep Cover – Leigh Russell

Detective Inspector Geraldine Steel struggles to remain focused on the murder investigation. She is distracted by her worries about her colleague and life partner, Ian Peterson, who has disappeared. Geraldine becomes close to her colleague, Matthew. She is unaware that Ian is working under cover in London, helping to identify a criminal gang who have been targeting Geraldine. As a second victim is discovered in York, Ian’s life is threatened by a psychopath. If he fails in his mission, both he and Geraldine may die…

Leigh Russell is the author of the Ian Peterson series (Cold Sacrifice, Race to Death and BloodAxe) and the internationally bestselling Geraldine Steel series: Cut Short, Road Closed, DeadEnd, Death Bed, Stop Dead, Fatal Act, Killer Plan, Murder Ring, Deadly Alibi, Class Murder,Death Rope, Rogue Killer, Deathly Affair and Deadly Revenge. The series has sold over amillion copies worldwide. Cut Short was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association (CWA),John Creasey New Blood Dagger Award, and Leigh has been longlisted for the CWA Dagger inthe Library Award. Her books have been #1 on Amazon Kindle and iTunes with Stop Dead and Murder Ring selected as finalists for The People’s Book Prize. Leigh is chair of the CWA’s DebutDagger Award judging panel and is a Royal Literary Fellow. Leigh studied at the University ofKent, gaining a Masters degree in English and American Literature. She is married with twodaughters and a granddaughter, and lives in London. Twitter

My thoughts: this was a really good, solid police procedural. I enjoyed the changing perspectives between Geraldine and Thomas. Ian’s storyline undercover in London felt a bit weak in comparison, I almost wished there’d been a link between the two cases to strengthen the storylines. It wasn’t nearly as interesting as the York one.

The way Thomas just keeps making things worse for himself was almost comedic – if very black humour. I enjoyed seeing how the police went about looking for every clue and connection – rather than the “gut feeling” some fictional detectives rely on to magically solve a crime.

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