Sometimes murder is the only way to get even… The gripping new Scottish crime thriller that you won’t be able to put down. Perfect for fans of L J Ross and Val McDermid. ‘A deliciously dark and twisted tale that kept me reading late into the night’ Graham Smith, bestselling author of A Body in the Lakes Four friends with dark secrets. One killer out for revenge. DI Frank Farrell and DS McLeod … revenge.
DI Frank Farrell and DS McLeod are tasked with investigating the brutal murder of a defence solicitor’s wife in Dumfries.
It’s been over a year since they left the town after an investigation robbed them of a dear friend. But now they’re back and must find a way to move on.
When the son of another defence solicitor is murdered, a strange tattoo etched on his body, the case takes them into darker, more disturbing territory.
It leads them back into the past – to a horrific fire in a cottage that took a woman’s life, to four friends harbouring dark secrets – and finally to a killer waiting patiently for revenge.
Praise for Avenge the Dead
‘Expertly plotted, I was completely engrossed in the investigation and the lives of the characters, there were twists and turns all the way through keeping me on the edge of my seat… definitely a “just one more chapter” kind of read!’ Sharon Bairden, Chapter in My Life
‘Brutal and gritty in parts whilst sensitive and emotional in others, this book had me turning the pages well into the night’ Alison, NetGalley
‘This was another riveting foray into the world of DI Frank Farrell! From the first chapter, I could not put this novel down, staying up late to finish just to see what would come next’ Krystal, NetGalley
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Well-structured third outing for priest-turned-detective DI Frank Farrell. Although he and sidekick Mhairi carry baggage from the previous case, this can be read as a standalone. But why not start at book one and enjoy this dependable police procedural series from the beginning?
I thought that the plot of this crime novel was a good one, and I liked how the author bridged events from the past to ones in the present. However, not having read the first two books of the series, I felt like I was missing a lot of the references, and I certainly did not have a grasp on the backstory. It was not for lack of trying by the author, because she does make several mentions to keep the plot moving. It just felt like there was more focus on the characters’ personal demons than there was on the case itself, and I wish there had been more of a balance. I would still recommend the book, but for a better understanding, start the series from the beginning first. For a full review, please visit my blog at Fireflies and Free Kicks. This review was written based on a digital pre-release ARC, and all thoughts are my own.
3 stars
DS Mhairi McLeod and DI Frank Farrell are called to assist in the investigation in a neighboring city of Dumfries. The wife of a solicitor has been murdered. The husband has an alibi, but it seems pretty weak.
However, Frank is still being eaten alive over the very serious wounding of a fellow officer a year earlier. He has become somewhat unreliable with Mhairi covering for him. Dumfries is where Frank and Mhairi are from and he is very reluctant to go back there.
Almost immediately they learn that the wife had a lover, another solicitor. Did the husband know? He says not. The poker players he was supposedly with the night his wife was killed were having a reunion of sorts for another solicitor who was murdered in a house fire some ten years earlier.
Another murder is committed. This time it is the almost adopted son of another of the small circle of solicitors. Is someone out for revenge against these guys? Is it a mere coincidence? Then another! The press is going crazy – as are the police. Frank doesn’t know how long he can keep up this pace. They have a possible suspect for the second killing, but they couldn’t have done them all, could they?
Suddenly the team is innundated with informantion and clues.
This is a well written and enjoyable novel. I didn’t like the way Frank had descended into a drunken stupor much of the time. I thought it was unbecoming of him. He was so irritable and unforgiving which I also found unsettling. This is perhaps my least favorite Jackie Baldwin book. The ending seemed a little forced as thought the author wasn’t quite sure how to wrap it up. The interesting writing and the relationships between the other cops saved the book for me. It was interesting to see Frank and Mhairi trek back to Dumfries.
I want to thank NetGalley and HarperCollins UK/One More Chapter for forwarding to me a copy of this interesting book for me to read, enjoy and review.
In Dumfries, a young solicitor’s wife is stabbed to death in her own house. The husband was covered in blood and his prints are on the knife, but he has an alibi from 2 criminal defence lawyers and a prosecutor from the fiscal office who says that they were playing poker with him at the time of the murder. The 2 children were at the nanny’s house. The local police ask Police Scotland for a Major Enquiries Team and DS Mhairi Mc Leod, DI Frank Farrell and DC Dave Thomson are sent to investigate as ‘the three of them hale from the area’. Both Farrell and Thomson bring their tom-cats along. (as for now I know r’s not essential info for the story but merely a side-event, adding a bit of flavour to the soup?)
It’s quite clear that something happened during a previous investigation when they all worked for Dumfries police that resulted in the loss of their boss who was also a dear friend. Well, he’s not dead but maybe even worse is that she’s in a semi-conscious coma. Especially Frank is still suffering from this and seeks salvation in drink, what’s not beneficial for his level of functioning.
It doesn’t take long before they hear the rumour that Gina was having an affair with another lawyer. But even stranger is the revelation that the poker party was in reality, a 10th anniversary of the death of Colette, yet another lawyer who was engaged with one of them (Peter Swift). She was burned to death in a cottage while the men were staying in a hotel nearby. On top of that, the father of the victim is a retired casino-owner with supposed mob ties.
But a couple of days later an elderly dog-walker finds the stabbed body of Aaron, the foster son of one of the witnesses under a bridge. Is someone targeting family members of lawyers? Just any lawyer or only this specific group?
…
I didn’t read the previous volumes in this series and that didn’t give any serious problems with understanding this storyline. It works as a standalone but I’ve gotten curious about the other stories now, so I’ll probably read them anyway. The characters are realistic and likeable, they’re all a bit flawed as humans tend to be and intriguing enough to wonder how things will evolve in their lives.
This is a straight forward police procedural with a crime that needs solving, a few red herrings along the way send you in the wrong direction and a number of lines of inquiry are meticulously investigated and eventually one after the other is excluded. Stubborn sleuthing and perseverance (in this case teamwork) eventually finds the killer. It’s a very well written mystery, you keep on guessing till the end how everything locks together and who the murderer is (well, I had a hunch but didn’t see how it could be done). Sometimes it doesn’t need to be more than that. It’s a very entertaining story and I’ll definitely read more by this author.
I received a free ARC from Harper Collins.UK through Netgalley and this is my honest review.
In Scotland, DI Frank Farrell and DS McLeod are tasked with investigating the brutal murder of Gina, a defense solicitor’s wife. The investigation returns them to Dumfries, where neither has returned in over a year since an investigation left a friend and colleague severely injured. When Aaron, the teenage son of another defense solicitor, is murdered they find he has a tattoo that potentially links the cases. Police in this small rural area are swamped, trying to determine if the two deaths are linked, if there are separate murderers, or even if both cases are connected to a fatal fire that took a woman’s life a decade prior.
Avenge the Dead was well-paced and interesting, with a good sized group of suspects and a number of possible motives. At times I wanted to yell because characters ignored dangerous and abusive behavior for years then were “shocked” to learn of criminal activity. Mad as it makes me, that is realistic though difficult to read. You can read this book without reading the earlier books in this series, but because characters are still attempting to deal with fallout from events in a prior book it would be best to read the series in order.
Content Warnings: SPOILER rape; pictures and video taken of women in sexual situations without their knowledge or consent; death of a child; self-harm; stalking SPOILER
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC. The opinions in this review are honest and my own.
Great mix of investigation and personal drama for Farrell & McLeod
4-4.5stars
What a good murder mystery, with an old, gruesome death suspected of connecting to a new spate of fatal attacks seemingly centered on a small group of local barristers. The setting in Scotland, one of my favorite places, first drew me to the story but the excellent writing, character development and plot kept me.
This was my first time reading a Jackie Baldwin mystery and, though a good deal of the police detectives’ personal drama stems from events that occurred prior to this story, I was curious about learning the background but had no trouble understanding the continuing thread. This book slowly reveals some of the details but I guess I’ll have to go back and read the prior books in the series to get the full scoop on Lind’s injuries, Moore’s traumatic disappointment, and Farrell’s romantic disappointments and reasons for leaving the priesthood. DI Frank Farrell with his drinking, Droopy Dog attitude and suicidal thoughts was a hard character to love, but his colleague Mhairi McLeod was so loyal and embroiled in his issues. Strong, opinionated DS McLeod I really liked.
I would have rated it higher but I felt the murderer was too easily identified (by me at least; it took the detectives several hundred pages longer than me to figure it out and then come up with the evidence). Still, the journey there was exciting, with some great action sequences (including a brawl at the courts!), and there was a real surprise at the end.
Thanks to publishers Harper Collins, One More Chapter and NetGalley for providing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest review.
Thanks to the author, publisher, and Emma Welton of Damp Pebbles Blog Tours for a copy of Avenge the Dead in exchange for an honest review.
Here’s the short version of this review: It’s an enjoyable police procedural/crime novel. Go read it.
If that’s not enough to compel you, here’s my longer review:
The book’s prologue ends with an act of brutal violence: the fiery death of a nameless woman. But the fire doesn’t come until after I felt sympathy for this woman, who apparently has some morning-after regrets about sexual and drug-related indiscretions with people she will face in court the next day. Then she dies.
There are so many juicy, alluring tidbits in this opening. As the story jumps to the present day, I read on, eager to figure out how that death relates to the current murder. Or does it?
Of course it does. In real life, it wouldn’t necessarily; when one investigator has a hunch that the two cases are connected, the rest dismiss it.
But this is fiction: what happens in the prologue (especially a murder) must affect the current story . . . somehow.
It’s a complicated story, a scattered jigsaw puzzle of seemingly disconnected pieces. As a lot of readers do, I kept trying to guess the killer’s identity and fit all the pieces together. I couldn’t. And for a long time, neither can the detectives, who meet dead end after dead end on the murders.
Baldwin does a good job keeping us in suspense. Will McLeod and Farrell figure out who is the killer before another person dies? Or are they too late, and there’s no way to stop the events that started long before the first page? The question pulses beneath the story-line.
DI Frank Farrell is a complex character. As an ex-priest, he struggles with his faith (or lack of it), seeming intent on punishing himself for the past and sabotaging his own future. Fortunately, his old friend Father Murray is there to give spiritual advice: hang on. I enjoyed these parts a great deal. Farrell’s struggle with his faith reminded me a little bit of Ian Rankin’s early novels, where John Rebus feels isolated and hears only silence when he prays. Here, though, it’s more fleshed out.
I also enjoyed the other characters, particularly DI Kate Moore. Her grief and stress take a toll on her body, and she reminded me of myself when I had an eating disorder in college. I don’t know if Baldwin intended to portray Moore this way, but the character’s self-destructive coping methods resonated with me.
There were a few things that distracted me.
Sometimes I wasn’t completely convinced by some of the suspects’ behavior. Without spoilers, it’s hard to explain. But on rare occasions, the attorneys don’t display as much canniness as I’d expect; and on some equally rare occasions, certain police seem unrealistic. It’s rare, as I said. It might be realistic, though: no one performs at the peak of one’s abilities all the time, especially not under stress. It did take me out of the story a little bit, though.
This is a nit-picky detail, but it bothered me, so I thought I’d mention it. Throughout the book, Frank Farrell is usually referred to by his last name (Farrell, DI Farrell) while Mhairi McLeod is usually referred by by her first name (Mhairi). As the point of view comes more-or-less equally from both characters, I found this curious. It felt like a power imbalance, with a professional name for the man and a more personal name for the woman. I doubt the author meant it this way! It’s simply a little quibble on my part, one that stems from too many years of studying feminist literary theory. Sorry. Old habits die hard.
But Baldwin is excellent as she develops the relationship between Farrell and McLeod. They’re partners and close friends. Both are terrific, well-developed characters. Both are still grieving from a previous case that left their friend in a comatose state. Ferrell, in particular, can’t let go of his emotions and his character arc in this story is moving, realistic, and carefully written.
I thoroughly enjoyed Avenge the Dead and I recommend it to those who like police procedurals.
Note: This is number 3 in the DI Frank Farrell series. Though I have not read the first two books, I didn’t have too much trouble following along. There’s a previous case that is referenced a few times, but not enough to be off-putting or confusing for readers who haven’t read books 1 & 2, and better yet, there’s no spoilers.
3 1/2 stars, rounded up to 4. I would definitely read more books by Jackie Baldwin!
This was another riveting foray into the world of DI Frank Farrell! From the first chapter, I could not put this novel down, staying up late to finish just to see what would come next.
Not only are these characters are complex, but the world around them so multi-dimensional that it is easy to get lost within the pages, trying to piece together the clues as they come. It is easy to see how much time and effort the author put into researching and putting together each layer to bring the reader a gripping novel with twists and turns that are surprising, to say the least.
Speaking to the characters, I enjoyed watching Frank and Mhairi as their friendship grew stronger – and I feel like Frank, in particular, had a strong arc throughout this entire story. Still reeling from the severe injuries and hospitalization of his friend Lind, when we first are reunited with the DI, he is lost more often than not in the depths of a bottle, forgetting important things and putting a strain on his friendship with Mhairi as she is forced to cover for him time and again. As someone who has struggled with their faith, I can easily relate to Frank and the anger he harbors. on that front.
I was a little concerned about how things would play out once they were forced to return to their old stomping grounds, but thankfully the author managed to walk that delicate line between focusing on the case and the key players there, as well as what was going on back at the station between Frank, Mhairi, and their former co-workers (some of whom have secrets of their own). As the murders started piling up, I found myself trying to not only figure out the clues as they were introduced, but paying careful attention to the suspects and interviews, trying to piece together who was behind everything – only to be shocked right along with everyone else when all was finally revealed.
I strongly believe this is a solid police/thriller/whodunit novel that will appeal to fans of all those genres. I would read more from this author.
DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.