#BookReview ‘The Taken’ by Alice Clark-Platts

About the book…

A tense and powerful police procedural set in the city of Durham where a murdered preacher may be more monstrous than his own killer.

There’s the lost.
There’s the missing.
And there’s the taken.

She asked me once if we had any secrets, and I shook my head.
‘No secrets between us,’ she said.
‘No,’ I answered. ‘Never ever.’

In a Durham hotel at dawn, celebrated preacher Tristan Snow is murdered as he prays. None of the other guests – not even his daughter, his wife, or her sister – saw or heard anything.

But then again, they all had a motive for murder.

Detective Inspector Erica Martin is confronted by secrets and lies, lost in a case where nothing is what it seems.

With no answers, DI Martin is consumed by questions: Is anyone in this family innocent? When the victim might have been a monster – is there such a thing as justice? And does anyone deserve to die?

My thanks to publishers Penguin for approving my Netgalley request to read the second Erica Martin police procedural, ‘The Taken’, by Alice Clark-Platts which is available in paperback and e-book formats now!

‘The Taken’ is a re-working of the Greek story of Medea, wife of Jason (and the Golden fleece fame) in the context of a police procedural. In a dingy B and B, in the middle of nowhere, a preacher from the church of Deucalian is found dead., the back of his skull caved in and a dead pigeon under his bed.

The list of suspects is long and plentiful-from his scornful daughter, his scheming manager and his oddly quiet wife. The preacher, Tristan Snow, was about to embark on his biggest ”Miracles’ tour of the UK and was a well loved celebrity, so why does wife , Sera, not seem overwrought about his death?

Is cool and calm daughter Violet a candidate for murder?

How about sister in law, Antonia, who seems a little too close to Tristan for comfort?

And there, lurking in the background is the faded B and B manager Eileen , who makes the worst tea EVER. In the midst of this comes detective Martin, a soon to be divorced woman who is dating her boss, Sam, on the QT and is thrown on at the deep end whilst looking into this genuinely creepy set up where Tristan is faith healing, creating miracles and exorcising demons.

But maybe, just maybe, he had a few demons of his own… As revelations and further attacks come thick and fast, Martin, and team need to be one step ahead of a ruthless killer who will attack again, and again. The way that we place people in the public eye on pedestals and allow them access to our innermost thoughts is scrutinised as this investigation takes hairpin bends around our love for fame, and the way blind eyes are turned in the hope for the miraculous to occur.

I loved how thrilling this story was, and how using Erica Martin’s surname as a symbol of what we expect from a detective , reinforcing the masculine and burying the feminine in order to survive is so often used to advance , professionally speaking.

This novel goes to some very dark places and I enjoyed travelling there in the excellent company of Erica, and her team. The banter between them came across so naturally, and the northern backdrop of Durham really set the scene perfectly as a literal, and metaphorical ‘end of the line’. Highly recommended.

About the author…

I am a former human rights lawyer who used to work for the UK Government. As a litigator, I worked on cases involving Winnie Mandela and the rapper Snoop Dogg. I loved my job but then we re-located to the tropics and now I live in wonderful Singapore.

I also write short stories which have been published in in various anthologies. And when I’m not writing, I’m running The Singapore Writers’ Group which I founded in 2012. This is a fantastic group of both professional and amateur writers who meet monthly and attend workshops and critique sessions

Links-http://www.aliceclarkplatts.com/

Twitter @aclarkplatts @PenguinUKBooks