It never rains but it pours . . .
When a ruthless gang burgles the home of a Premier League football player, DCI Gavin Roscoe and DS Sunita Roy suddenly have a murder and a kidnap on their hands.
The footballer’s stepson, Marcel, is taken from the palatial property whilst it is being ransacked, and his bodyguard is shot, stone cold dead.
To help them with their task, DI Parkes from the National Crime Agency’s Kidnap Unit joins the investigation but he has very different ideas about how the operation should be run.
While rain lashes the surrounding countryside, tempers rise, as do the flood waters.
Can the police track down this dangerous gang, unmask its malevolent ringleader, and reunite the boy with his family before it’s too late?
IT NEVER RAINS is the sixth book in the detectives Roy and Roscoe crime fiction series by Tony Bassett.
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Tony Bassett is a former journalist who worked on regional and national newspapers in Britain for more than 40 years.
He mainly reported on crime, show business, human interest and consumer topics. Now retired, he writes crime fiction.
Tony is best known for his series of novels set in the West Midlands.
They feature Detective Chief Inspector Gavin Roscoe, an experienced detective and family man, and his sergeant, law graduate and resourceful problem-solver Sunita Roy.
The fifth book in the series, Heir To Murder, was judged first in the Mystery and Suspense (Police Procedurals) category in the American Fiction Awards in June 2024.
The novel concerns a peer of the realm’s son found axed to death after a row over loud music. Two years earlier, his older brother mysteriously disappeared while hiking in Spain.
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The series is published by The Book Folks, an independent London publisher specialising in crime fiction.
Other books in the series (in order) are: Murder On Oxford Lane, The Crossbow Stalker, Murder Of A Doctor and Out for Revenge.
His stand-alone thriller Seat 97, about a man shot dead at a London concert hall, has also been published by The Book Folks.
Two further works (the crime novel Smile Of The Stowaway and the spy novel The Lazarus Charter) were published by The Conrad Press.
Tony first developed a love of writing at the age of nine when he produced a junior school magazine.
A few years later, his local vicar in Tunbridge Wells staged his play about the Biblical story of Naboth’s Vineyard.
At Hull University, Tony was judged Time-Life Magazine student journalist of the year in 1971.
Tony, who has five grown-up children, is a Life Member of the National Union of Journalists. He lives in South-East London with his partner Lin
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My thoughts: This was a very clever, interesting police procedural and DS Sunita Roy does tremendous work unravelling the case and finding the missing boy. Unlike the twit they’ve been landed with from the NCA’s Kidnap Unit – DI Parkes, who just seems to have useless ideas and get under foot. At one point I thought he might be the man on the inside, so inept is his involvement.
Thankfully the rest of the team, and DCI Roscoe aren’t idiots and follow the evidence. Which shows a much larger, and more complicated conspiracy than it first appeared.
Another great read from Tony Bassett, a man who knows how to write a gripping and intelligent story.
*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 