Many thanks to RaRaResources for the blog tour invite and ARC – here is my review of ‘The Fourth Victim’ by John Mead:
Whitechapel is being gentrified. The many green spaces of the area, which typify London as a capital city, give the illusion of peace, tranquility and clean air but are also places to find drug dealers, sexual encounters and murder.
Detective Sergeant Julie Lukula doesn’t dislike Inspector Matthew Merry but he has hardly set the world of the Murder Investigation Team East alight. And, it looks as if the inspector is already putting the death of the young female jogger, found in the park with her head bashed in, down to a mugging gone wrong. The victim deserves more. However, the inspector isn’t ruling anything out – the evidence will, eventually, lead him to an answer.
What does TWG think?
I really don’t quite know how to review this book I must admit. I was quite intrigued about the overall premise of the book to begin with – police procedural, a whodunnit and questionable circumstances – definitely my kind of book.
However, I couldn’t help but feel as though I was missing something! There were times where I felt as though I had walked into a conversation half way through, or picked up the book in the middle of a situation when in actual fact I hadn’t. I couldn’t quite grasp the way in which the storyline came together which ended up making the novel, in my eyes, a very difficult book to follow.
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the police procedural content, especially the gripping events which led to the conclusion. There was definitely a complex level of suspense throughout the entire novel which I thought worked very well with such flawed characters.
For me, ‘The Fourth Victim’ had the ideal recipe for a belter of a read, I just felt that the icing on the cake needed a bit of fine tuning. All in all an intensely promising read.
About the author.
Born in the mid-fifties in East London, on part of the largest council estate ever built. I was the first pupil from my local secondary modern school to attend university.
I have travelled extensively during my life from America to Tibet. I enjoy going to the theatre, reading and going to the pub. It is, perhaps, no surprise that I am an avid ‘people watcher’ and love to find out about people, their lives, culture and history.
Many of the occurrences recounted and the characters found in my novels are based on real incidents and people I have come across. Although I have allowed myself a wide degree of poetic licence in writing about the main characters, their motivations and the killings that are depicted.
Social Media Links –
Amazon author profile: https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07B8SQ2ZH
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnMeadAuthor
Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17891273.John_Mead
The Writing Garnet 