Monday 17 June 2024

πŸ—‘ The Lost Victim (Kate Marshall #5) πŸ—‘ Robert Bryndza πŸ—‘

Release date: 11th July 2024


When school girl Janey Macklin disappeared from the seedy side of London in 1988, her case went cold, with no body and no witnesses. Now, thirty years later, private detective Kate Marshall has been approached by a true crime podcast producer with an intriguing question they need her help answering: What if Janey was killed by Peter Conway, the notorious Nine Elms Cannibal?

The contract would be the most lucrative of Kate’s career, but it comes with a price of its own, dredging up a sordid, complicated past that she would sooner forget . . . one that the paparazzi are determined to keep in the headlines.

As Kate and her partner, Tristan, scour King’s Cross for clues, no two leads seem to point in the same direction. The last person to see Janey alive has already been tried, convicted, and then acquitted of her murder, Peter Conway is in poor health and fading fast, and the line between their clients and their suspects is blurring with each new revelation about the case.

With little to work from, can Tristan and Kate wade through clandestine phone calls, decades-old secrets, and deteriorating DNA evidence to solve Janey’s murder, or will she remain one of London’s countless missing persons, forever lost to time?

Can be read as a stand-alone.

 

Copy received  for an honest review

Wow... just, wow! This is the best Kate Marshall book yet. It is absolutely brilliant.
 
A cold case from 30 years ago has her wrapped up again in the life of serial killer Peter Conway - when all she has ever wanted was to have her links to him disappear.  I liked that we got to go back to him though.
 
This blended past and present so well.  It goes into the world of forensics and how much things have changed since the 80s. 
 
Bryndza is a master a of theory driven stories.  There is so many ways this story could have gone, the twists and turns in the array of characters that keep the readers eyes locked on the pages, eager to turn the next page.
 
And I found myself a lot more emotional than the other books in the series.  What Bryndza makes Kate go through in this installment is heartbreaking really, and she has the strenght of an ox to get through it all in my opinion.
 
I liked the character development throughout the series, absolutely adore Kate, Tristan and Jake and where they are now compared to the first book.
 
This is a series that I will keep on reading until Bryndza says "enough!". I look forward to seeing what Kate and Tristan tackle next