Tag: #TeamDaniels

LIES COST LIVES

THE BRAND NEW KATE DANIELS THRILLER

Three years ago police officer Georgina Ioannau was murdered, her killers never brought to justice.
Now the prime suspects have been shot dead within hours of their return to the UK.
Has someone finally taken the law into their own hands?

Seeking out the truth will force Kate Daniels to confront her own past mistakes, and put her career, and her team’s lives, on the line.

The gripping new Kate Daniels thriller about what happens when someone takes the law into their own hands from awardwinning crime writer Mari Hannah.

My thoughts: another utterly gripping and brilliant read from Mari Hannah. Kate and her team are thrust into the closest case to them. Georgina was not just another police officer, she was Kate’s friend. Her death was devastating and since both her children are also police, one that has never gone away.

The DI put in charge of the investigation at the time, Curtis, did a terrible job, possibly intentionally, and no one was ever prosecuted. Now the two biggest suspects, the Bradshaw sons, are back in Newcastle, and then shot dead on the doorstep, their father later killed by a firearms officer.

As Kate attempts to separate herself from the emotions of the case, that firearms officer is in critical condition in hospital, her team are struggling. Putting herself as OIC of reviewing Curtis’ mess and asking Hank to run the new incident – who was the Bradshaw shooter? But gradually it becomes obvious it’s all one case, someone was getting revenge for Georgina – but who?

Digging into her friend’s life and secrets, she realises that despite how close they were, Kate didn’t know Georgina at all. She had secrets, ones she kept from everyone, her friends, her husband, and one of them is the solution to Kate’s questions, and it’s very close to home.

Carmichael comes close to breaking point too, and once again Kate’s relationship with Jo almost cracks under the pressure, it’s Christmas and this case is too hot to wait, so there’s no turkey for any of the MIT this year.

This is an intense and highly tangled case, it could leave some of Kate’s relationships completely ruined and with Bright away, she’s also running the show. Will the pressure finally get to her, pushing herself too hard and spreading herself too thin?

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

A FATAL CRASH

A plane on route from London to New York City has disappeared out of the sky. This breaking news dominates every TV channel, every social media platform, and every waking hour of the Metropolitan Police and US Homeland Security.

A PRIVATE TRAGEDY

The love of DCI Kate Daniels’ life was on that aircraft, but she has no authority to investigate. This major disaster is outside of her jurisdiction and she’s ordered to walk away.

A SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH

But Kate can’t let it lie. She has to find out what happened to that plane – even if it means going off book. No one is safe.

And there are some very dangerous people watching her…

My thoughts: when Kate believes Jo is on a plane that has just been destroyed, she leaps into action, crashing into the investigation and demanding full access. Bright is playing catch up getting the paperwork in place, and as the case builds, it seems there’s a link not to terrorism, but to a murder in Kate’s own back yard. Could this all be about a war between drug dealing gangs in Northumberland?

Kate is recruited to help the FBI to investigate and get justice for the flight’s passengers, which may or may not include Jo. This case is personal and then becomes something so much bigger than Kate could imagine, and also incredibly local. It’s all hands on deck and it could end up costing the MIT everything.

A Hidden Clue

A victim leaves a note for the SIO who will investigate her death. This not what DCI Kate Daniels expects to find concealed at a crime scene.

A Desperate Plea

The note contains a last request: ‘Find Aaron’. But is Kate searching for a potential second victim, or a killer?

The Countdown is on…

Following the clues, Kate becomes the obsession of her adversary who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Will she find Aaron before he does?

My thoughts: imagine you know that you’re going to die, in fact, you’re going to be murdered. Would you carefully leave a trail of evidence to lead the police to your killer? Ensuring that they can’t reach the one person you’d do anything to keep safe in the process.

Kate’s newest case has a victim so determined to protect someone and ensure their killer ends up where he belongs. But only if Kate can figure out all the clues and follow the trail left behind. It’s a clever, complex case, and Kate needs to ensure the team is at their best, but after the events of the last book, they’re still reeling.

This series just gets better and better, the cases more intriguing, complex and ingenious. And Kate finally starts to understand the concept of a work/life balance, as opposed to her eat sleep breathe the job behaviour. Thankfully the ever loyal Hank Gormley is always right behind her, trying to stop her going off the rails completely.

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

IT’S IN THE BLOOD. Two brothers from the same criminal family die within hours of each other, five miles apart, one on the edge of a Newcastle industrial estate, the other in a busy A & E department of a local hospital, unseen by the triage team. Both victims have suffered horrific injuries. Who wanted them dead? Will they kill again? Investigating these brutal and bloody killings leads DCI Kate Daniels to break some rules, putting her career as well as her life on the line.

As the body count rises in the worst torture case Northumbria Police has ever seen, the focus of the enquiry switches, first to Glasgow and then to Europe ending in a confrontation with a dangerous offender hell-bent on revenge.

My thoughts: starting with the grisly double murder of two brothers, tortured and dumped, this case has Kate and Hank heading all over the place – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Whitby and Spain, in the pursuit of justice.

The two men were sons of a notorious, now deceased, Scottish thug, and it seems their deaths are revenge killings. But no one can find their killers, have they gone to ground north of the border?

The case gets twistier and knottier when one of the killers turns up dead, is someone turning the tables on them? The trail leads to the Spanish coast – famous retirement haunt of many a British criminal and retiree. The dead Allen brothers’ father supposedly died out there, but Kate smells a rat…or a parakeet!

Another truly gripping and grisly installment of the Kate Daniels books, with Kate ordered to take some time off at the end of the case, but can she ever truly unwind?

Gallows Drop is Maria Hannah’s sixth gripping crime novel featuring DCI Kate Daniels.

At dawn on a lonely stretch of road, a body is found hanging from an ancient gallows the morning after a country show. Hours earlier, DCI Kate Daniels had seen the victim alive. With her leave period imminent, she’s forced to step aside when DCI James Atkins is called in to investigate. There’s bad blood between them.

When Kate discovers that Atkins’ daughter was an eyewitness to a fight involving the victim, the two detectives lock horns and he’s bumped off the case. It’s the trigger for a vicious attack on Kate, exposing a secret she’s kept hidden for years and unearthing an even darker one.

Shaken but undeterred, Kate sets out to solve a case that has shocked a close-knit village community. As suspects emerge, she uncovers a curious historical connection with a hangman, a culture of systematic bullying, a web of deceit and a deep-seated psychosis, any one of which could be motive for murder.

My thoughts: this is a horrible and senseless crime, the young man murdered and hung from the gibbet, even DCI Kate Daniels is shocked. And the connections to her one time nemesis DCI Atkins, doesn’t help. Atkins’ daughter Beth, who notably doesn’t use his last name, was best friends with the victim, and is clearly scared.

Kate is supposed to be going on a make or break holiday with Jo, but this case needs her. Atkins is her cover, a drunk, obnoxious man with serious anger issues, he wants to sweep the case under the carpet and pin it on his daughter’s boyfriend. Whether he’s guilty or not. Kate can’t let him do that. Thankfully her bosses have her back. Sadly, it might just be time though for her and Jo.

Hank is struggling, refusing to stay home and recover from his injuries on their last case, he’s still there for Kate, but also still meddling. Straining their friendship to its limits. And now Kate’s awful father is in hospital, seriously ill. With so much on her plate, can Kate solve the case, deal with Atkins and support her dad?

The case is complex and knotty, people’s relationships often are, and Atkins’ bull headed behaviour isn’t helping. Beth won’t tell anyone everything she knows, her fear is eating her alive and her secrets almost overwhelm her. Kate tries to be a friendly ear, but she’s desperate to catch the killer.

I wonder whether Kate will break at some point, she’s yet again put off the rest she needs and has been ordered to take, there’s so much going on and losing Jo will hurt.

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

A gripping thriller starring Kate Daniels, who must make the connection between two seemingly unrelated grisly accidents…which may not be accidents at all.

Four a.m. on a wet stretch of the highway: a driver skids out of control. Quickly arriving on the scene, detective Kate Daniels and her partner, Hank Gormley, witness a horrifying display of carnage and mayhem that proves to be one of the worst traffic accidents in Northumberland’s history. But as the casualties mount, they soon realize that not all of the deaths occurred as a result of the accident …

At the same time, on the other side of town, a house goes up in flames and its two inhabitants become charred corpses. Except for the timing, there is no evidence to connect this incident with the traffic accident. But it soon becomes apparent that all is not what it seems, and that Kate and her colleagues are always one step behind a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

My thoughts: a terrible accident on a wet road, a fire ripping through a family home, a man dropping dead of a heart attack. How can these be connected? DCI Kate Daniels and her team have their work cut out for them as the killer starts targeting the one witness who can link them to at least one or possibly more of these terrible crimes.

They’re looking for a chameleon – someone who can change their appearance at will, with dozens of aliases and absolutely no concern for other people. Totally ruthless, willing to kill an old lady in a car accident to steal a lottery ticket, manipulative and cruel. And worse of all, they wear a uniform – they could be a cop, a paramedic or in the fire service, one of their own.

It’s a race against time to find their suspect and bring them to justice, before they disappear and possibly to somewhere with no extradition treaty. They are happy to kill anyone that stands in their way. But Kate has to do this by the book. Will her one witness tell her who to look for?

Another heartpoundingly good case for the MIT as a series of apparently unconnected crimes all start to come together and bring the team to focus on one person, if they can get the evidence together to prove it.

Plus Kate’s messy personal life comes to the fore, as Jo issues an ultimatum and prepares to move on in her job if Kate can’t come out and be with her publicly. Then there’s the glamorous, no strings, artist she’s been flirting with. Can Kate choose love or will she loiter in the closet?

The next gripping novel by Mari Hannah. When the body of what appears to be an adult female is found on the Northumberland coastline, it is DCI Kate Daniels and her murder investigation team that are first on the scene. Then another body is discovered sitting side by side with the first, and suddenly everything changes. Why have they been placed together in such a desolate area beneath the walls of an imposing castle? Meanwhile prison psychologist Emily McCann is just returning to work after the death of her husband only to find herself the fixation of convicted sex offender Walter Fearon. As his mind games become more and more intense could it be possible what’s happening on the outside has something to do with his murderous past, and as his parole approaches what exactly does he plan for Emily? As Daniels’ investigation runs down dead end after dead end it becomes apparent that nothing is quite as it seems, and someone is hiding more than one deadly secret…

My thoughts: this starts with a strange discovery on a quiet beach, and requires a delve into the past for Kate and the team to find some answers, do the outfits the victims are wearing have anything to do with why they were killed?

Meanwhile Emily, a psychologist colleague of Jo’s at the prison is having something of a crisis, an inmate is due for release, and he’s obsessed with her, sending her into a tailspin. Does she have reason to be afraid?

As the two cases unfold and become more complicated, can the team solve them and continue their run or successes in keeping killers off the streets?

Another intelligent and complex crime thriller, with lots of twists and turns that hooked me and drew me back into Kate’s world.

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

Eleven months after discovering a brutal double murder in a sleepy Northumbrian town, Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels is still haunted by her failure to solve the case. Then the brutal killing of a man on Newcastle’s Quayside gives Daniels another chance to get it right, and her first case as Senior Investigating Officer. When Daniels recognises the corpse, but fails to disclose the fact, her personal life swerves dangerously into her professional life. But much worse, she is now being watched. As Daniels steps closer to finding a killer, a killer is only a breath away from claiming his next victim.

My thoughts: this was a really gripping crime read that throws you, and DCI Kate Daniels, in at the deep end with a body in the night. Could it be connected to the unsolved double homicide Kate is still working on from almost a year ago? And what is the killer trying to say with his unusual calling card?

Determined to solve the murders, Kate puts everything on the line. Including her personal life. Is the killer someone close to Kate or are they coming for her too?

Absolutely gripped from start to finish, loads of twists and turns. The relationships between Kate and her boss, and between her and her DS are really interesting too, lots of conflict and concern that makes it harder for her to do her job.

When a young girl is found dead at the base of Hadrian’s Wall, it’s not long before Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels realizes that her death was no ordinary homicide. She was thrown from a great height – and was probably alive before she hit the ground.

When a local businessman reports his daughter missing, has Daniels found the identity of the victim, or is a killer playing a sickening game?

As the murder investigation team delves deeper into the case, half-truths are told and secrets exposed. And while Daniels makes her way through a mountain of obstacles, time is running out for one terrified girl . . .

My thoughts: this was even more twisted than the previous book, with young women being targeted by someone with a vendetta, that isn’t even really about them. Can Kate and her team find the missing woman in time or will the killer add to their body count?

Kate’s a lot more sure of herself this time around, her private life’s still a mess, but professionally she’s on firmer ground, with the last case under her belt and a changing of roles above her, she’s confident and sure she can catch the suspect this time and stop more young women ending up victims. Another totally gripping read from Mari Hannah.

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