#BlogTour ‘Shed No Tears’ by Caz Frear

About the book…

Christopher Masters, known as ‘The Roommate Killer’, strangled three women over a two-week period in a London house in November 2012. Holly Kemp, his fourth victim, was never found.

Until now.

Her remains have been unearthed in a field in Cambridgeshire and DC Cat Kinsella and the major investigation team are called in, but immediately there are questions surrounding the manner of her death. And with Masters now dead, no one to answer them.

DCI Tessa Dyer, the lead on the 2012 case, lends the team a hand, as does DCI Steele’s old boss and mentor, the now retired Detective Chief Superintendent Oliver Cairns.

With Masters dead, Cat and the team have to investigate every lead again.

BUT IF YOU’D GOT AWAY WITH MURDER, WHAT WOULD YOU DO WHEN THE CASE IS RE-OPENED?

Massive thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for the blogtour invite and gifted ebook review copy of ‘Shed No Tears’, which is out now from Zaffre Books!

So as Caz’ first book had been lurking in my TBR for way too long, and thanks to the prompt by this blogtour, I went back to the beginning and read the Cat Kinsella mysteries from the start and oh boy am I glad that I did.

In fact, having raced through all 3 books in just over a week, I am envious of those about to encounter the formidable Cat for themselves.

In ‘Sweet Little Lies’, Cat is introduced to the world of crime fiction, her background story revealed as she investigates the death of a woman she had presumed had died decades before. Her instincts to investigate, explore and expose lies has been as integral to her from childhood, as is her antagonism towards her dodgy father, minor criminal figure and pub owner.

Change of name, move to London, established as rising star of the police force under the watchful eye of Murder Squad boss Kate Steele, and parental father figure of a partner, Luigi Parnell, Cat is going places. Her ruthlessness in pursuit is revealed as both a character flaw and a boon, she does not let go until the right person is being dangled by the ear in  front of Lady Justice.

In the second, ‘Stone Cold Heart’, after a brief sojourn, Cat is back in her stomping ground investigating the death of a young Australian woman-accident or murder, this throws up links to Joseph Madden, the coffee seller who asks Cat’s advice about his wife who he is convinced is planning to do him harm. Was this a set up from the start? Where do you stop and start being a police professional? As the case progressivel gets darker and darker, what starts as trying to identify a killer produces a whole range of suspects…

And in this, the third outing for Cat, she is encountering her first ‘cold’ case-that of the serial killer known as ‘The Roommate Killer’.

Four women were acsribed to his killer playbook,3 bodies recovered and irrefutable proof of the 4th entering his building never to be seen again,closed the case 6 years agao.

His boasts in jail attracted the wrong kind of attention and resulted in his murder, so when the bones of 4th victim, Holly Kemp are found, it seems like the case is once again, wrapped up tight. But discrepancies in the murder method, and the condition of the body ring alarm bells for Cat.

In order to go back into this case and investiagte every crossed t and dotted i, she risks undermining on the fastest climbing female superior officers, and personal hero Tessa Dyer. Coupled with this, one of her father’s criminal associates, ‘Uncle’ Frank Hickey is determined to bring her onto his payroll with the threat of exposing her family history and undermining everything she has worked towards.

Caught between a rock and a hard place and somehow managing to extricate herself without sacrificing her strict moral code seems to be Cat’s area of expertise-she absolutely not blind to her faults but playing the system in order to win is not the same thing as overlooking right from wrong. This Cat has 9 lives.

What I love so much about Caz’ books is that the victims are always the center of the story. They are not laboured over in gruesome detail , there is a dignity to the way each death is dealt with that fits with Cat’s first person narrative-the victims never exist as the fulcrum of a story whereby they are known by virtue of being a certain killer’s victim-e.g ‘number 4’, Holly Kemp, was repeatedly represented in the tabloids with glamour shots and references to her breast implants and looks. Her sense of self and the loss of her life becomes secondary to the story built up around her where she can no longer speak for herself.

So Cat and her team step up and they speak for the dead.

Using the crime procedural framework, Caz examines they way women are depicted in society, especially the vulnerable, the ones who slip through the net, the ones who atteact the very worst sort of attention by nature of their fragility and then are abused, murdered and discarded with no more thought than chucking away chip shop paper.

The outrage felt by the reader is echoed in Caz, you genuinely believe in her multi tonal narrative, her desperate attempts to juggle her personal and professional relationships and realise her ambitions.

She is someone that you root for, someone you want better for from life.

And I cannot wait to read more of her investigations.

About the author…

Caz Frear grew up in Coventry, England, and spent her teenage years dreaming of moving to London and writing a novel. After fulfilling her first dream, it wasn’t until she moved back to Coventry thirteen years later that the second finally came true. She has a degree in History & Politics, and when she’s not agonizing over snappy dialogue or incisive prose, she can be found shouting at Arsenal football matches or holding court in the pub on topics she knows nothing about. Sweet Little Lies is her first novel

Twitter @CazziF @ZaffreBooks @Tr4cyF3nt0n