#BlogTour-‘Out Of The Ashes’ by Vicky Newham

About the book…

‘Another clever thriller from Vicky Newham’ Paul Finch
`Newham’s gift is to make her complex, flawed characters live and breathe’ Times Crime Club

A tragic accident – or a ruthless killer?

When a flash mob on Brick Lane is interrupted by a sudden explosion, DI Maya Rahman dashes to the scene. A fire is raging through one of the city’s most infamous streets, the sight of Maya’s childhood home. And the discovery of two charred bodies in the burnt-out building transforms an arson attack into a murder case.

With witnesses too caught up in the crowd to have seen anything useful, Maya is facing a complex investigation without a single lead. And, when reports of a second, even more horrifying crime land on Maya’s desk, it’s obvious there’s more at stake than she could ever have imagined. She must find the answers – before all of East London goes up in flames.

This is the second book featuring DI Maya Rahman, and I would absolutely urge you to read book 1, ‘Turn A Blind Eye’, because a) Vicky writes very convincing characters embroiled in intriguing thrillers and b)’Out Of The Ashes’ builds on the events and backstories in book 1.

This time out, Maya is investigating an arson attack in the Brick Lane area of London, where a flash mob is derailed by an explosion in a Lithuanian run soup shop. Witnessed by an elderly Polish woman, Rosa Feldman, Maya quickly realises that this is not a random incident, that this area was intentionally targeted as an area of mulitcultural incomers who represent what some factions would wish Britain was rid of.

Hoping to spark riots between immigrants, and those who want to take over perceived slum areas and gentrify them, Maya needs to work quickly with her team to find out who did it, what motivated them and how to stop this happening again. Whislt doing this, she is juggling her feelings and her professional instincts to discover what happened to her missing father who she believed died when she was a child.

Drenched in atmosphere right from the start this is a great novel which focus’ on a situation that is of growing concern to so many of us-‘allowing’ people to live here, the fourth richest country in the world and yet the UK has never seemed so unwelcoming to those who perceived as ‘others’.

Without lecturing or proselytising, Vicky does a fabulous job creating a sense of time, and place, then ratcheting up the tension to unbearable levels.

Huge thanks to the always amazing Lily Capewell and HQ Stories for their invite to the blog tour and my ebook copy which was gifted to me to review.

About the author…

Vicky Newham is a writer, teacher and psychologist. She is the author of the DI Maya Rahman series of police procedural novels set in multi-cultural East London. The first in the series, ‘Turn A Blind Eye’, publishes in hardback and ebook on April 5th 2018, and the paperback on Feb 7th 2019. The second, ‘Out Of The Ashes’, publishes in hardback and ebook on May 30th 2019.

The East London setting of the novels, and the characters, were inspired by the 4 years that Vicky spent living and working in the Tower Hamlets area.

Vicky grew up in Sussex and taught Psychology in London for many years before moving to Kent, where she now lives. She is fascinated by what makes people tick and what pushes them to commit violence and murder.

Links-https://www.vickynewham.com/

Twitter @HQstories

@VickyNewham