(Standalone books)
Wow! A book once started I really didn’t want to put down. Six people, once friends who shared a house at university, meet up at a hotel for a weekend stay five years later. They all hold a secret from their last night at uni. One of them disappeared after a night at the pub, one who never normally joined in so they all spiked his drink as a laugh. They thought he may have gone down the river path on his way home and drowned. When at the hotel they find out that one of the group had already died a couple of weeks beforehand, also drowned. The weather is closing in as it's snowing heavily and the hotel is in a dip, where mobile signals are sporadic. Nearby, detectives Kate and Hayden are also on their way back from a couple of days away when their car breaks down. They decide to walk and find themselves at the hotel. It's a strange place to say the least as it's being sold so there are only two rather odd staff remaining. When the bodies start accumulating, are the rest of the residents safe and who is behind this?
Oh boy! This is almost a locked room type scenario as all the residents and the two staff are snowed in with no means of outside communication. All of the group of friends had a hand in the drink spiking and other than Kate, Hayden and the two staff there is no sign of anyone else being around. The mystery deepens with a twist or two and I couldn't stop turning the pages. This is one heck of a stunning, captivating (all puns intended!) read. Although one of a series, this happily stands alone- I hadn't read the others- that said I may well be going back to find the others, I enjoyed this one so much. A brilliant read I can’t recommend highly enough. Very much looking forward to the next one.
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STORM ON THE LEVELS (Detective Kate Hamblin #12) by David Hodges MEET DETECTIVE KATE HAMBLIN IN THIS BESTSELLING SERIES FROM A FORMER POLICE OFFICER. Six old friends. A weekend in a country hotel. A ruthless killer among them. Detective Kate and her husband Hayden are on their way home from a romantic mini-break when a ferocious storm blows in and their car breaks down. Stranded on a remote lane in the blizzard, they seek shelter in a nearby country hotel. They aren’t the only guests. Six old university friends are meeting up for a reunion weekend. One of them hides a terrible secret. The next morning, a body is found in the hotel lake. A tragic accident it would appear. The following day, a second guest is found drowned in the bathtub. Two drownings in two days is no coincidence. Snowed in, with no signal and the phone lines down, Detective Kate must unmask the killer among them before more guests meet a grisly end. Perfect for fans of Rachel Abbott, Joy Ellis, Mel Sherratt, Angela Marsons and Helen H. Durrant. READERS LOVE THE DETECTIVE KATE HAMBLIN BOOKS: ‘This book was awesome! It had suspense, intrigue, murder, mystery, serial killer, and great police work . . . Kept me glued to my Kindle.’ Debbie B. ‘Loved it.’ Aileen G. ‘Ooooh, what a dark and twisty book! . . . I thoroughly enjoyed it.’ Poppy M. ‘Loved it from start to finish . . . Loads of twist and turns.’ Graeme R. THE DETECTIVES Detective Sergeant Kate Lewis is a feisty detective with a dynamic approach to her job. She is tenacious, but also prone to being headstrong. This often lands her in tight spots, earning her the nicknames ‘Maverick’ or ‘Go-It-Alone’ Kate, and it puts her on a collision course with the more bureaucratic hierarchy of the force. In contrast to Kate, her detective constable husband and partner, Hayden, is an overweight, untidy, ex-public schoolboy with a pompous, laidback attitude and an old-fashioned view of life, which drives Kate to distraction. But he is also highly intelligent with a reasoned approach to everything, which, can sometimes act as a brake on his partner’s impulsive behaviour. THE SETTING A patchwork of fields, peat moor and marshland, dotted with picturesque villages and criss-crossed by man-made irrigation ditches or rhynes, the Somerset Levels covers an area of about 160,000 acres between the Mendips and Quantock Hills. Sparsely populated and prone to flooding with a brooding stillness, which creeps into the very soul; a secret place bound to fire the imagination of any self-respecting crime novelist, whose thoughts will invariably turn to . . . murder.
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