One killer with a crossbow can hold two able-bodied hostages all night, force them to drive across the city and then force then to climb to the top of the Liver Building through security, and milling people? I rather enjoyed this one as you can tell, as a well-executed thriller, with plenty of scope and a firm foundation for a projected series. A young woman is murdered, and when the police arrive on the scene they discover that she was a police officer. I don't know what made my ears bleed more - the awful cardboard characters or the ridiculous mystery behind it all.

I struggled with this for a couple of hours but had to give in - couldn't bear the Liverpool accent adopted by the otherwise excellent Mr. My blogging friend Raven over at Raven Crime Reads shared a brilliant guest post from David about the Liverpool setting and I highly recommend you give it a read.Many thanks to Bonnier Publishing for providing me with an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. DS Cody also seems to share an interest in Liverpool’s most famous group, with several songs and places of interest to fans mentioned throughout the book. A few months ago, many of my fellow book bloggers were talking about the second book in the DS Nathan Cody series, Hope to Die.

This is a very good start to a new series and successfully introduces the characters in this blood curdling thriller. The police find a large black bird at the scene with a scrap of paper wrapped around the birds scrawny leg with the printed text Nevermore.The opening chapter of Jackson's new novel features a spine tingling level of fear that mounts at a cracking pace.

When similar murders follow, it becomes clear that these are not random attacks but targeted ones by a sadistic but clever killer. When a book starts out with unexpected promise and then disappoints on several levels despite strong storytelling in many regards, it's a big letdown. Okay, the first time it's described, it has its intended effect of grossing us out, but to repeat it every single time the character goes in there is just ridiculous. And then the killer strikes again, and Cody realises the threat isn’t to the people of Liverpool after all – it’s to the police.I actually cared about his progression throughout the story, he very quickly became somebody that I could see as a real person. Besides not swallowing the raison d'etre for the killings because it's just too daft, the manoeuvring of the characters is ludicrous as well. The Liverpool setting makes for an interesting change, the characters are well drawn and the plot builds to a taut and tense conclusion.