The story itself is not that interesting in my opinion, but the tough-as-nails detective Jessica and the dark humour is! Also I have enjoyed Jessica's compassion and relationship with the homeless teenager.

The ending is a real cliffhanger and it has very much picked my interest in the next installment in this British noir series.

Good story, good plot, and really good author tying it all together. Would highly recommend to others.

An over all good follow on.

But a few things annoyed me in this book.
A reference to a cookie, quickly was referred to a biscuit.

There were some other things to which kept me scratching my head.

No the best book in this series IMHO

I have each and every book by Kerry, and wow, he certainly didn't disappoint with another Jessica Daniel thriller, I just love the way she is portrayed, vulnerable, yet kickarse when it matters. In this book she shows her softer side (won't spoil it) and I just loved that new quality of hers. Highly recommended.

Why is it that the Jessica Daniel series just keeps getting better? I'm an avid reader of the series and own all of the other novels in the series.

This novel finds Jessica trying to help a teenager who has stumbled into some trouble with pickpocketing. While she's developing this relationship, she is also dealing with some underhanded tactics to try to push her to convict the wrong person in the murder she is trying to solve. She also is struggling with some personal attacks by an anonymous person, including someone spray painting the side of her car. Even with all of this going on, each part of the story felt fully developed and kept me interested. I never fail to be on the edge of my seat in one of Wilkinson's novels, and this one was no exception.

There was also a surprise ending, which has me incredibly looking forward to reading the next book in this series. If you aren't reading these novels, you need to be!

Kerry Wilkinson is consistently one of hte best thriller writers around, and this title vears that fact out. I could not put this down!

This wasn't nearly as enteelrtaining as the first series. Jessica is still the same old Jessica just the story didn't attract me as much as I thought. I guess when you love a series it can't always stay as it was

I really loved this book! Excellent story with brilliant main characters. I would recommend this book.

This is by far one of the best series I have ever read! While reading this story I had planned on telling you how fast paced this book was, how Jessica was her usual bad ass self getting things done as only she can and then I got to the end and OMG!!!!! I can say no more but You Have Got To Read This! I need the next one now! I thank Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this great book!

I received this book from #NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review. I liked the book but didn’t love it. I guess I never really cared that much about what happened to Detective Jessica Daniel and I can’t exactly tell you why. It’s not that she is unlikeable she is just that kind of person that you don’t really care. This is also the first time I have read any of the books in the series and one reviewer said that this is not a standalone book so that might be the reason. The story line was interesting but I wasn’t too keen on the ending. Seemed a little blah.

I just love Kerry Wilkinson's books. His books just get better and better. Scarred for Life is another instalment of DI Jessica Daniel series. This book was just excellent throughout. I feel I know her personally now. Can't wait for his next book. Excellent author.
If I could give this book more than 5 stars I would.

GOBSMACKED. That's my takeaway. No spoilers...

What is this 9th in the DI Jessica Daniel Series about? The blurb gives a decent overview as there are a lot of cases that Jessica and her team are juggling in this outing. I've read the previous ones, in order, so following along with the changes wasn't difficult as I'm familiar with the backstory. I'd urge anyone interested in this series to do the same as they don't work well as standalones.

Character development, especially of Jessica, is ongoing and, though she still can't sit still for a minute and is ridiculously headstrong, she's matured a bit since the beginning of her career. She works for the Manchester Metropolitan CID, based at Longsight, and her supervisor is DCI Jack Cole. Fortunately, she's not as messed up emotionally as a lot of other female protagonists in many of the books I read in this genre. That said, I'm not sure about her future.

Not sure that I will go on with the series though I've loved and enjoyed it to this point. It's too bad as I always looked forward to another JD episode.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this e-book ARC to read and review.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Bookouture for a review copy of Scarred for Life, the ninth novel to feature Manchester DI Jessica Daniel.

Work life is busy for Jessica as she has a pickpocket and an armed raider to find and then she is called out to a dead body. Student Damon Potter has been found dead in a rubbish bin behind the university rowing clubhouse and if that isn't enough a dog walker stumbles over the mutilated corpse of a young woman.

I thoroughly enjoyed Scarred for Life. It is a while since I spent time with Jessica so I had forgotten how gung-ho she is, constantly needing to be doing something. The novel reflects her hyperactivity as it speeds along at a fairly frenetic pace, trying to keep up with all these cases and a dose of justifiable paranoia. Jessica feels she is being sidelined and squeezed out of her own investigations. I was underwhelmed with the reasons for this because the main one mostly seems unlikely and secondly because I have not yet read the two previous novels the reason for her boss's changed attitude towards her passed me by. I should point out that this novel too ends in a cliffhanger so I would really recommend reading the novels in order.

I like the fact that the novel accurately reflects the nature of modern day policing whereby there is more than one case on the go at any one time. Necessarily this means that not all the cases in the novel get the same attention and are solved rather perfunctorily but overall the novel is a compulsive read.

The characterisation in the novel is good. I like the humorous banter between Jessica and her fellow detectives as it adds a little light relief to proceedings. The new guy Archie looks promising with his smart mouth hiding some good instincts and character reading. Jessica seems to be maturing as she sometimes thinks before she acts (but not always!). They all seem natural and realistic. I wish, however, Mr Wilkinson would give his running commentary on the weather a break - it rains in Manchester. So what? It rains frequently in the rest of country as well and we don't need reminded.

Scarred for Life is a good read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

The story in this latest series entry is interesting and well thought out. The execution? Not so much.

Even if I don't mention the mother of all cliffhanger endings - never a way to win my heart - I kept running into "what the heck?" references I didn't quite understand simply because I've read only one of the previous books. For that reason, I can't recommend this as a standalone; to get the most out of this series, my advice is to start from the beginning.

Along the way, other issues bothered me as well. The book is set in Manchester, England - and having a wonderful, very British daughter-in-law, I'm fairly comfortable with most words, phrases and spellings that somehow were transformed when they [we] crossed the Pond (some for better, some for worse, IMHO). But in this instance, more than once something left me scratching my head and sending her an email or turning to Google for an explanation. Other times, the author seemed confused as well, such as when central character Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel reaches for a "cookie" and a couple of sentences later is eating a "biscuit." But when she popped a single broken "crisp" into her mouth (in the States, folks, that's a lone potato chip) and immediately had trouble talking because she had a "mouth full," I pretty much lost it.

As for the plot, Jessica has dragged her live-in fiance to Piccadilly Station in hopes of catching a pickpocket who's been targeting couples like them (why she has to explain the reason they're there when Adam complains is a bit of a mystery - surely she would have told him ahead of time). But just as she realizes her own purse has been victimized, Jessica gets a call that a body has been found in a waste bin. That turns out to be Damon Potter, a 19-year-old student and college rowing team member. Meantime, Jessica and her partner, Archie Davey, have been working on another major theft case that involves a robber with a so-far unidentifiable tattoo (although this, too, turns out to be such a well-known design that I couldn't believe no one in the entire Manchester police department had ever seen it before).

The initial investigation of the rower's death reveals a possibility that hazing may have been the cause, but it's suspicious enough for Jessica to lean toward murder. Although the student president of the rowing society, Holden Wyatt, is deemed a person of interest, Jessica is gobsmacked to learn that an unknown someone or someones way above her job level are determined that Wyatt must be prosecuted whether or not he's guilty. That, plus her immediate supervisor's sudden and inexplicable cold shoulder toward her, make her wonder if her career is in jeopardy. When yet another body turns up, it matters not to the powers-that-be; that's a case of a different color, and Wyatt remains expected to go down for Potter's murder no matter what Jessica thinks.

As I said at the beginning, the basic story is of sufficient interest to keep me reading (and I do thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read it in exchange for an honest review). But given all the inconsistencies, I'm sorry to say this one just didn't do it for me.

Kerry Wilkinson is quickly becoming my go to author for when I need a fast paced, fun mystery. I really look forward to his works and am glad there seem to be more books written that have yet to be published in the U.S.

This book doesn’t disappoint. You gotta love a book that starts off with Jessica on undercover duty to catch a pickpocket being the one to get her wallet knicked.

The book’s release seems perfectly timed with several university students’ deaths here in the States attributable to alcohol poisoning related to hazings.

One of the things I like about Wilkinson’s books is he doesn’t pretend detectives have the luxury of dealing with a single case at a time. At least not in a city the size of Manchester.

I love Jessica’s powers of observation and her descriptive tone. And Archie Davey is a great addition to the team. “He was like a little pitbull she could let off leash as and when she chose.”

For fear of spoilers, I won’t say anything about the plot or ending except to say this is a worthy addition to the series.

My thanks to netgalley and Bookouture for an advance copy of this book.

What a fantastic book i loved it. It had me hooked right from the start and i just couldnt put it down. It was fast faced, full of twists and turns that kept it interesting. I was literally hanging on to every word waiting to see what would happen next. This series is captivating and addictive and this book didnt disappoint it was really goid and well worthy of 5 stars. I cant wait for the next book this series is brilliant.

Excellent book. Jessica and new character Archie work well together. From tricking a pickpocket to looking for murderers and a conspiracy at the police department, this book will keep you turning the pages. The ending was a shock with a capital "s". Look forward to reading the next book in the series. Thank you NetGalley, Bookoutre and the Author for allowing me to read and review this book.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

DI Jessica Daniel juggles the death of a student, whose body is found at his rowing clubhouse, the vicious murders of two women and a spate of pickpocketing. This is the ninth in a series and I have not read any of the previous eight, but this stood well on its own, apart from a scene towards the end involving a pair of Jessica's glasses, which meant nothing to me.

In many ways this is the sort of crime novel I always claim I am looking for: a straight procedural with a reasonably well adjusted main character and not too great an emphasis on his or her personal life. For some reason, this (while perfectly competent and meeting those criteria) was just a little run of the mill somehow. I suspect it might have been a richer read had I read the previous instalments; the other police officers were likeable characters and there was humour in Archie and Jessica's joint interrogations.

The ending was a bit of a shocker - are they always like that?

I would be interested in other novels by this author.