Well hello there lovely reader, today is the day I get to tell you how awesome Where The Dead Fall by MJ Lee is and why you should add it to that TBR pile, one more book won’t hurt! This is the second book in the Ridpath crime thriller series and is only available in e-book format from the 11th of April. You haven’t read the first one I hear you say, well you can treat yourself to both books here!
Thank-you to Tracy of the Compulsive Readers blog for having me on – board the tour and Canelo Publisher for the kindle copy of the book via Netgalley to review in preparation for this tour.
About The Author
Martin has spent most of his adult life writing in one form or another. As a University researcher in history, he wrote pages of notes on reams of obscure topics. As a social worker with Vietnamese refugees, he wrote memoranda. And, as the creative director of an advertising agency, he has written print and press ads, tv commercials, short films and innumerable backs of cornflake packets and hotel websites.
He has spent 25 years of his life working outside the North of England. In London, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Bangkok and Shanghai, winning awards from Cannes, One Show, D&AD, New York and London Festivals, and the United Nations.
When he’s not writing, he splits his time between the UK and Asia, taking pleasure in playing with his daughter, researching his family history, single-handedly solving the problem of the French wine lake and wishing he were George Clooney.
“DI Ridpath is in the process of getting his life back together when everything goes wrong.
Driving to meet his daughter, he is caught in a gruesome motorway accident, in which a near-naked man is rundown by a lorry, while fleeing from a lone gunman. As Ridpath closes Manchester’s road network in search of the assailant, one question remains: why did nobody else see him?
Ridpath’s investigations soon unearth a number of inconsistencies, which pulls the police force itself into question, and hint at something sinister to come.
For Manchester is on the brink of a fresh surge of violence unlike anything it has seen in decades, and Ridpath must battle this unprecedented conflict along with his own demons. One thing is for sure. There will be blood on the streets…”
From page one this crime thriller packed one hell of a punch, it didn’t even lull you into a false sense of security which got the heart racing and myself as the reader completely and utterly gripped! It begins with a prologue type chapter from an individual who has been kidnapped and is trying to escape. From that point the book was an almighty rollercoaster of twists.
The chapters are labelled in days of an investigation which allows you to keep up to date with the sequence of events as it unfolds, with a dual type narrative that gave breadcrumbs of details that kept you hooked on every word. What a whirlwind. I completely fell in love with detective inspector Thomas Ridpath who has recently been through the ringer, he’s intelligent and I admired him for sticking to his detective guns when everyone else was trying to brush off his thoughts on a case of a death and a man with a gun on the motorway! He has recently gone back to work after having treatment for cancer, I think a lot of his team are brushing him off and his ability to remember things correctly is constantly questioned, this is partly due to his colleagues thinking what he saw was down to stress and / or the drugs he takes, I think this pushes him to show he can still do his job; cancer remission or not.
I liked that MJ Lee has research things that may seem trivial, for instance the way MIT is set up, as well as forensic pathology. This, for me allows a sense of authenticity within the novel, although I know all crime thriller writers research this type of thing, MJ appears to have fully emerged himself into making sure aspects are factually correct. This reader really appreciated that attention to detail! Thank-you!
Now we have our hero, now the villains; well aren’t they another slice of evil? I felt that they were pretty much masterminds of crime and murder. The perfect ratio of light and dark in this action packed crime thriller, the more you dig into the storyline the more you can feel yourself getting sucked in to its fast paced cat and mouse type narrative. It’s very excellent!
Where The Dead Fall is an enjoyably compelling read filled to the brim with surprises and twists. This is a crime thriller not to be missed!
Thank – you for visiting my blog today on my day of the tour!
The Reading Closet 