Love the Mariner books and this one didn’t disappoint. Good to get a bit more of Tom’s backstory whilst still having a mystery to solve.

Thank you NetGalley and Joffe Books for this arc.

This was the 1st Tom Mariner book that I've read. But it won't be my last. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Plenty of action and complex characters. At first, I thought the story kind of ping-ponged around, not really settling and moving forward, but soon found some major portions to start coming together. There was at one out-of-the blue real coincidence and one thread left hanging (to be developed in a future book I hope). But for the most part the story made sense. I also had some questions about some of the relationships the characters were in, but hopefully will see them further developed / resolved in future books. That sort of writing can be addictive!


4.0 stars

This is my first book by Chris Collett - but it won't be the last! This is one of my favourite genre, police procedural. But the character development was very good too. I want to know what happens to this character and some of his colleagues too!

killer lies by Chris Collette.
Just when DI Tom Mariner seems to be settling down with his new girlfriend . . . everything kicks off.
First, a badly decomposed body of a young woman is found in a Birmingham sewer.  The police can’t identify her and dub her “Madeleine.” 
Then an important politician and his wife are shot on an isolated road.
And finally, a bomb explosion in the busy city kills 5 people, causing chaos and panic.
Can Detective Mariner and his team get to the bottom of crimes that will come very close to home for his team.
Mariner will need to bend the rules and risk everything to get to the truth. And in a thrilling conclusion,  his own life will be at risk.
a very enjoyable read. lots of action. 4*.

Unfortunately not as good as the other books in this series.
This instalment tofu very much on Mariner' s complicated family history

I honestly enjoyed this book so much a nice easy read and likeable main characters

I will definitely be buying more of Chris’s books and read some more about Tom Mariner

Good storyline and plot and a really good twist at the end that I didn’t see coming

Highly recommended

DI Tom Mariner works in Birmingham area. Has found a decomposed body of a woman. Is going into a church with his partner Anna as a bomb goes off inside. He holds the hand of a 10 year old while she dies so she will not be alone. Gives him much thought of being a parent and having that happen to your child. Sir Geoff Ryland and his wife plus the chauffeur are killed on a country road. He is not on the case but he finds things out that make him just not able to stay away from the case. This takes him down a number of roads with people who knew his mother before he was born. A must read.

So I figured out who the killer was as soon as I heard about them. I have to say though it was really convoluted way to why the killer did what they did. The book was okay nothing great. I did enjoy reading the English version compared to the US version.

The third book in the DI Tom Mariner series and another great read. We see more of his personal life and gain an insight into his emotions. he eventually finds out who his father is and this leads him into danger. A very interesting plot and some excellent characterisation leading up to a thrilling climax. Well worth reading. Thanks to Net Galley for my copy. I reviewed on Amazon, Goodreads and Facebook.

This is the third book in the series by Chris Collett featuring Tom Mariner. It opens as Tom and his partner Anne, joined by his colleague Tom Knox and his partner, attend a service at the cathedral at which a bomb explodes. This leaves Tom with PTSD and Tom’s partner with a partial leg amputation. Tom is clearly reeling from the bomb explosion – on coming round he aided the recovery effort and was left traumatised by the sights and sounds and not least the death of a girl he comforted whist they tried in vain to release her.

On the home front Tom is more or less living with Anna although he retains his own cottage (part of this he rents out). Anna’s brother is currently in a care facility thus releasing Anna from some of her day to day obligations. Anna’s mind is on starting a family and Tom is slowly coming round to the idea until they were caught up in the bomb explosion.


On the work front Tom’s office is dealing with the discovery of a body found in a sewer, obviously the bomb and Tom also learns of the murder of a politician and his wife and his driver.

Tom then discovers that he is the illegitimate child of the politician and he determines to discover more. What follows is what amounts to a private investigation of those linked to the politician, his history and his work. Set against this are several rather serious attempts on his life and deterioration in his relationship with Anne.

All in all, a completely different type of police story as it focuses on Tom’s private life and looks at the reality of PTSD and the corrosive effects on relationships. Fascinating. I can’t say it was a thrilling, nail-biting read but it was certainly well worth reading, thought provoking and satisfying. I heartily recommend it.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

I’ve not read the prior two books in this series and will admit I only picked it up because it takes place in Birmingham. The book starts off with three different crimes all in the space of a few pages.

One of crimes, a bomb going off in St. Martin’s church during Xmas season has a personal impact on DI Mariner and his significant other, Anna. They are there as individuals, not in an official capacity when the bomb explodes. It affects them in different ways which leads to a definite strain on the relationship. A second crime, the murder of an ex-MP Ryland, his wife and chauffeur, also ends up having a profound effect on Mariner.

Mariner is a very engaging character. Collett has done a good job of making him feel very real. He’s got some commitment issues and he’s not one for discussing his feelings, but he’s not damaged goods like so many other detectives in similar series.

The book takes place in the early 2000s. But to be honest, it feels very current with the increase in bombings taking place over the past few years.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s got a nice steady pace with lots of questions raised. I felt as confounded as Mariner trying to suss out what got Ryland killed. It’s a good engaging police procedural. I’ll definitely be checking out the first two in the series.

My thanks to netgalley and Joffe Books for an advance copy of this novel.

Thank you Net Galley. This was my introduction to Chris Collet's writing and I am a fan. The book is a nice take on the usual police procedural. The plot and the writing are crisp and have enough twists and turns to keep you hooked. The characters are well fleshed out and interesting. You want to know them better. Definitely a series to read.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Joffe Books for a review copy of Killer Lies, the third novel in the Birmingham based DI Tom Mariner series.

It's all going on in the run up to Christmas. Fresh (?) from excavating a murder victim from a sewer Tom is just outside the cathedral for the Force's carol concert when it explodes. At the same time the Met is investigating the shooting of a politician, his wife and chauffeur and find evidence linking them to Tom. He then receives a note linking him to the explosion. Is he paranoid?

I thoroughly enjoyed Killer Lies which has a well thought out plot with plenty of twists and turns. It is not the most believable I have read but it held my interest throughout as Tom follows various leads and theories before reaching a fairly dramatic conclusion (both Tom and the novel). This is the kind of novel I like to read - a police procedural with a linear, logical timeline and a third person narrative. It is easy to read and follow without being simple.

The plot does stretch credibility at times with several attempts on Tom's life and his links to the murdered politician, never mind his personal investigation but it's interesting, absorbing and occasionally tense. I like the fact that Tom has several viable suspects whom he gradually eliminates over the course of the novel and that Ms Collett manages to keep her perpetrator and motive well hidden until the dénouement.

Ms Collett does a good job with her characterisation, mixing the domestic and professional. Tom Mariner is a bit of a strange man and I sometimes struggle to understand why he is so well liked. He is reluctant to commit to his girlfriend, Anna, who wants to start a family and move to the countryside. His ambivalence on this subject and the massive secrets he is keeping from her start to cause a rift.

Killer Lies is a good read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

I discovered the series featuring DI Tom Mariner towards the end of last year and I was thrilled to learn that there were more books in the series to come. Even better was the fact that I was asked if I would like to read and review ‘Killer Lies’ as part of the blog tour. You can imagine my excitement although on seconds thoughts best not. The happy dance was not pretty. Anyway I digress slightly so back to the review I do go.
I must admit to having something of a soft spot for DI Mariner. He is a dedicated policeman, who has issues but he is trying to work through them. He has a few close friends but I get the impression that quite often he would be happy to be on his own. This book sees him discussing the next step with Anna, who is his significant other. Anna wants to move in together and have a baby, which Mariner doesn’t appear all that keen about. I did wonder if that was related to his own childhood. He was brought up by his mother but in later years they were estranged for a time. There was no sign of father and Mariner’s mother deflected the questions about his father. However, ‘Killer Lies’ sees Mariner discover who his father is. It comes as a bit of a shock for him and he feels the effects for quite a while. His biological father is somehow caught up in one of the cases mentioned in the synopsis but I don’t want to tell you which one because that would be giving away far too many spoilers. ‘Killer Lies’ sees Mariner and Anna go through a very traumatic event, as there is an explosion in the church, where the police carol service is going to be held. Mariner tries to help a young girl but to no avail as she dies. Her face haunts his thoughts and dreams for months afterwards and quite understandably too. The explosion makes Mariner very jumpy and he is over cautious when it comes to security for him and his loved ones. Again this is quite understandable. Mariner is a typical man in that he doesn’t like talking about his feelings or about his mental health, as that would be seen as an admission of failure. From the description of symptoms given, I would go so far as to say that Mariner is suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). DI Mariner likes to investigate fully and if something doesn’t sit right with him, then he won’t settle until it has been sorted, investigated or discounted. Will Mariner have a relationship with his new found family? Will Mariner get to the bottom of who targeted the politician and why? Will Mariner discover the cause of the explosion and why? Well for the answers to those questions and more you at just going to have to read the book for yourselves as I am not going to tell you.
To say that reading ‘Killer Lies’ is addictive has to be the understatement of the week, in fact the understatement of the month!! I was gripped by the story from the very first word on the very first page. I basically couldn’t put the book down from the moment I picked it up and I just read all day. I didn’t notice how quickly the time and the page numbers were flying past. Before I knew what was happening it was dark and I had finished the book. Usually I am easily distracted whilst I read but not in this case. The story hits the ground running and maintains the pace throughout. Within a short space of time we have a discovery of a body in the sewer, the assassination of a politician and his wife as well as his chauffeur and to crown it all, there is an explosion in the church. I was so not expecting the explosion to happen and when I read about it, I certainly felt that it was an OMG moment. I literally couldn’t believe my eyes and I almost had to read through my fingers as I dreaded what was going to happen next. ‘Killer Lies’ took me through a whole range of emotions, from happiness to sadness, from hope to despair, from excitement to dread, from courage to fear and well you get the picture. I really felt as though I had been through the emotional wringer and I was in need of a bit of ‘recovery time’. ‘Killer Lies’ certainly left me with a book hangover- bookworms will know exactly what I mean by that.
In short, I totally, utterly and absolutely LOVED reading ‘Killer Lies’ and I can’t wait to read more books in the series featuring DI Tom Mariner. Here’s hoping that we don’t have to wait too long. I would definitely recommend this book, series and author to anybody. ‘Killer Lies’ was certainly one hell of a book. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is an easily well deserved 5* out of 5*.

What a fantastic plot. I adored the main characters and the storyline gripped me from first page to last. I would highly recommend this book.

The DI Tom Mariner series just gets better and better, I think the books are best read in order even though there is some background information on the characters. The plot is well thought out and brilliantly written and I particularly enjoyed the ending. Thank you for the ARC

'Killer Lies' is the 3rd book in the DI Mariner Series by author Chris Collett. This is my second read of a Chris Collett novel and enjoyed it very much. Lead character Tom Mariner is based in Birmingham which is an added interest to me as I am very familiar with many of the places mentioned in the novel.
They say things happen in threes, first a badly decomposed body of a young woman is found in a Birmingham sewer, the police can’t identify her and dub her “Madeleine.”. Secondly an important politician and his wife are shot on an isolated road. And thirdly a bomb explosion in the busy city kills five people, causing chaos and panic. Plenty for DI Mariner to investigate.
Works fine as a standalone, but based on this I intend to read many more. A very good Police procedural, very good plot and excellent characters.

I would like to thank Net Galley and Joffe Books for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is the third book in the DI Mariner series and it is a great addition to the series, the team are faced with a tough main case and living close to Birmingham with a husband in the Police Service, based in Birmingham, it does make you think what might happen - gave me plenty of food for thought.

I am a great fan and advocate of crime fiction books and this one had a great story but at times DI Mariner really wound me up in this book, I really wanted to give it higher but it has to be four stars from me for this one, I don't want to give away any spoilers but I will say whilst he got on my nerves (polite way of saying it) it hasn't put me off at all and I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series!

This book is a very good police procedural. DI Tom Mariner is having a difficult time-first a young girl's body is found in the sewer and they can't find out who she is or who her killer is. His personal life if a bit in turmoil as his girlfriend Ana is pushing to have kids. Then out of the blue Tom (who never knew who his father was) is told that his father was a well known/liked man who was just murdered. He tries to solve his father's murder on his own, and finds that someone is following him and trying to kill him. Who killed his father? What will happen with Ana? This book has lots of suspense in it which keeps you want to read it.

This book had me gripped from the first page and did not let me down.
This book is full of lies and deceit and once you start it you can’t put it down.
A brilliant book full of twists and turns I loved it.