Great thrilling novel which kept me turning the pages, would highly recommend to others. Brilliant writing, plot and characters.

Thanks to netgalley for the ARC of this brilliant debut offering by a talented author.
This is the first in a series featuring Detectives Rhodes and Radley and I can see that it will be greatly entertaining series to follow!
Highly recommended.

DI Katie Rhodes is investigating a serial killer leaving young mothers in a depraved and terrifying death. Katie needs Nathan Radley, a tortured soul who was one of the greatest psychologists used by the police force. Was being the word as he has been living in isolation tortured by his gift. Can they work together to solve the case?

The blurb looked brilliant on this but for me I struggled with it. It seemed like it was missing the backstory on the main characters and I came in half way through. I will try the next one and see if this works for me.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

A serial killer on the loose, nicknamed The Cartoonist as he arranges his victims in strange positions and makes a “speech bubble” near them.

A female detective and her old psychological profiler have to hunt him down. The profiler has been a recluse for the last year having more or less suffered a full break down from his work.

This is a slow burning thriller. Too slow imo. Felt very word heavy and many times I found it not holding my attention. The premise and set up at the start was nice and I thought I would be reading an interesting thriller, but alas it wasn’t to be.
I can’t quite put my finger on it but the writers writing style just didn’t do it for me. It was hard work most of the time.

Towards the end it gets really silly having taken an age to get there. This just wasn’t one for me.

Thanks to Netgalley, Nick Hollingsworth and Bookouture for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

While reading this I had to doublecheck I hadn’t missed a book previously. When I had assured myself I hadn’t I was desperate to know the backstory to both Katie and Nathan. There is so much hidden from the reader when the story begins. We get small snippets from the characters but most of it is drip fed at such a rate I did wish it would speed up a bit.

The story itself is written well, the characters of Katie and Nathan are brilliantly written, and I can’t wait to see what the author brings to this series next.

Many thanks to Bookouture and Netgalley for providing a copy.

I have really mixed feelings about this book. I would give it 3.5 stars.

Here's the novel description, because it really is a multilayered:
"The people of London fear for their lives when a twisted serial killer called The Cartoonist starts targeting young mothers, leaving their bodies on display in their homes with speech bubbles drawn from their lips. He has a terrifying story to tell, but first, the right people need to be listening…

Nathan Radley has a brilliant and dangerous talent. Formerly one of the best criminal psychologists on the police force he’s renowned for getting deep into the minds of the murderers he hunts. But for the past year he has lived in isolation, haunted by this gift and his own dark desires.

DI Katie Rhodes’ career is spinning out of control. She’d sworn never to knock on her old partner Nathan’s door again, but when she sees his distinctive birthmark drawn in chocolate on one of the victims, she knows she doesn’t have a choice. As the body count rises and the clues become more and more personal, Katie and Nathan join forces for one final case together."

The mystery was great and really exciting. The author certainly doesn't hold back when it comes to really showing you the dark side of serial killers and that created an "anything can happen next" atmosphere. The characters were also really interesting and had good backstories.

But you're thrown into the middle of the relationship, where so much is implied, but not really said, and that makes it difficult to know what's going on. I couldn't get a good handle on the leads.

Once you do get more of the picture, things are better, and I really got into it. It's just getting there.

I will definitely be checking out more of this series - it has potential and I enjoyed it. I hope we get even more information about the characters in subsequent installments.

Good thrill ride of a story! First I have read from Nick Hollins, and well worth a read, Im looking forward to the next installment now.

I could not get into this book at all. I found it really confusing. Sorry just not my cup of tea. I might try to read another book by this author to see if it is any better.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Thanks to Netgalley for my copy. 2.5*

I struggled somewhat with this book. I felt as if I had missed a previous book and was reading the second in a series. In my opinion I needed more background information on Katie and Nathan. Therefore I found it difficult to engage with them.

Unfortunately, this got archived before I could download it. Had to put a rating in order to send this.

4.5 Stars

This book was previously titled In The Blood.

A serial killer is loose in London. Dubbed The Cartoonist, he targets young mothers, leaving their bodies on display.

DI Katie Rhodes is called on to investigate and what she finds with the first body is enough to send her reeling. It's very reminiscent of an unsolved murder from a year ago. Nathan Radley was her partner at the time ... one of the best criminal psychiatrists on the police force.

For the last year, Radley has lived in isolation ...away from Katie, away from his family, away from everyone. The last case nearly did him in .... he is terrified that he has become or will become the same kind of monster that he's hunted for years. It runs in the family, you know.

As more murders are committed, each one is worse than the last .... and they are getting more personal to Rhodes and Radley. It's almost as though every case they ever worked on is being copied ... and this killer knows an awful lot of personal data on them.

Are these murders sending a message? Is he playing game? Is this revenge for something in the past? Or is it even more personal than anyone knows?

This is a unique crime fiction, with characters that won't fade from the reader's mind anytime soon. As the investigators keep processing clues going farther back in their histories, the suspense gets more intense. There are twists and turns that lead to an unexpected ending.

Many thanks to the author / Bookouture / Netgalley for the digital copy of this Psychological Crime Thriller. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

"We do know the truth about ourselves. We will always have our own secrets. And we will always seek to uncover other people's."

A murderer known as "The Cartoonist" is on a killing spree. DI Kate Rhodes enlists the help of a former partner profiler, Nathan Radley, to help find him. Regrettably, both of them have history and terrible memories of the past. The killer knows them very well.

This could have been a brilliant suspense thriller. Unfortunately, the narrative was so disjointed and so full of distractions and distortion that the reading was frustrating and so much work. I personally don't like to have to put so much effort into reading a story -- I just want it all laid out in an organized fashion so I can follow the plot and enjoy the ride to catching the bad guys. I'm sure that the way the author wrote this was designed to increase intrigue and suspense, but I found myself extremely irritated at the way it all developed. I don't feel that I got to know the main two characters or that they had any depth that would make me want to read about them again. I guess the main feeling I came away with was disappointment. A good premise but poorly executed. I see this is the first in a series, but I don't think I would want to continue if the writing and the style is the same. Yeah I get that Kate and Nathan are really messed up people. I probably would have identified with them more if the story had not included so much of their fractured lives with just hints dropped here and there. I failed to connect all the dots.

Again, I find that the blurb doesn't really tell you accurately what this book is about.

This book, when I read it, was titled IN THE BLOOD. Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the e-book ARC to read and review.

This disappeared off my Kindle, read some reviews and found it had been renamed In The Blood. I didn’t enjoy this book. I found it claustrophobic and felt like I’d joined a series half the way through and had no clue about what had happed previously. The plot confused me and I found myself looking at my reading progress wishing it would end. Not one for me.

Don’t trust your friends. Don’t trust your family. Don’t trust yourself…
When a young mother is found dead in her home with a mysterious symbol drawn on her body, DI Katie Rhodes is shaken to her core; it’s a perfect match to the birthmark she once saw on her old partner, Nathan Radley.Formerly one of the best criminal psychologists on the police force, Nathan was renowned for getting deep into the minds of the murderers he hunted. But for the past year he has lived in isolation, terrified of losing control over his own dark desires…
Katie swore she’d never knock on Nathan’s door again, but when another woman’s body is found, she knows she doesn’t have a choice.
As the body count rises and the calling cards get increasingly personal, Katie and Nathan realise that someone very close to them is playing a dangerous game. Who can they trust, and how many more innocent lives will be taken before they can crack this disturbing riddle?
An absolutely nail-biting serial-killer thriller. Fans of The Girl in the Ice, or anything by Angela Marsons or Rachel Abbott will not want to miss this page-turning debut novel.



Nick Hollin’s book, “Dark Lies” (previously titled “In the Blood”) was a great read! It was fast paced and his talent for character development was evident. Early in the story, we grew an attachment to the characters Katie and Nathan and read furiously to find out how their stories unraveled as well as how they are connected!
Katie, a brave and strong willed detective, was determined to get to the bottom of a new murder case. Seeking the help of ex criminal psychologist and friend, Nathan, who seemingly lost his marbles, was not the move that proved most popular with the rest of the department. Katie worked using her gut feelings as a guide. Are Nathan and Katie on their own? What does Nathan know that might help solve this case?
The most surprising connections between their pasts and their future will surprise you and keep you guessing until the very end! Will Katie be able to solve this mystery? Will Nathan aide in the capture of a crazy killer or is he the crazy killer? Read to find out!!!

I found this a hard book to get into. The beginning is disjointed and choppy with lots of references to past events that made me feel I had jumped into the middle of a series and missed some vital information about the two main characters, DI Katie Rhodes and profiler Nathan Radley, instead of this being the start of a new series. I don't mind having to work to put two and two together from a slow drip of clues in thrillers but this felt like walking into someone's nightmare where obscure comments made no sense. About a third of the way in the plot did start to pull together as more becomes clear about Nathan and his special skill and his past partnership with Katie. The lack of any backstory made it difficult to engage with either character although they are clearly both flawed and original. The plot is quite a convoluted, twisted one with it's origins a long way in past events that are very personal for both Nathan and Katie. Readers who like really twisted, graphic pyschological thrillers with flawed characters will probably enjoy this, but it just wasn't for me.

EXCERPT: He stands in quiet contemplation of his work, the warm glow of satisfaction lingering as the body ahead of him starts to cool. There is frustration there, too; she'd deserved better, deserved him to be at the top of his game, but instead he'd stumbled and very nearly missed her throat with the knife. He'd gone a little too deep, and the blood had sprayed to places he hadn't intended, like onto the corner of a child's painting pinned by a magnet to the fridge door. It looks like a signature, he thinks. But that crude little picture is not his art. His masterpiece will be something far more ambitious.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Don’t trust your friends. Don’t trust your family. Don’t trust yourself…

The people of London fear for their lives when a twisted serial killer called The Cartoonist starts targeting young mothers, leaving their bodies on display in their homes with speech bubbles drawn from their lips. He has a terrifying story to tell, but first, the right people need to be listening…

Nathan Radley has a brilliant and dangerous talent. Formerly one of the best criminal psychologists on the police force he’s renowned for getting deep into the minds of the murderers he hunts. But for the past year he has lived in isolation, haunted by this gift and his own dark desires.

DI Katie Rhodes’ career is spinning out of control. She’d sworn never to knock on her old partner Nathan’s door again, but when she sees his distinctive birthmark drawn in chocolate on one of the victims, she knows she doesn’t have a choice.
As the body count rises and the clues become more and more personal, Katie and Nathan join forces for one final case together.

Why is The Cartoonist using Katie and Nathan’s own dark secrets as calling cards on his victims? What does he want, and how many more innocent lives will be taken before they can crack his disturbing riddle?

To find a murderer, first you need to think like a murderer. The Cartoonist doesn’t just know this, he’s counting on it…

MY THOUGHTS: I have a love-hate-love relationship with Dark Lies by Nick Hollin. I loved the prologue. It drew me in and reminded me of Richard Montanari's writing. Then, for me, the book became an absolute nightmare. The writing was disjointed, choppy, I couldn't make sense of it. It was like someone in the grip of a manic psychotic episode had jotted down their random crazy thoughts. I became frustrated, disappointed, almost angry - where had this great read gone? - and was on the cusp of dnf'ing it, when everything changed again.

Suddenly I was being gripped by a still strange, but very compelling (and gruesome) serial killer thriller that in no way could I second guess. The story swept me along, buffeting me from all sides. It is wild, and crazy. But it works. Mostly. Things that made no sense to me from the 'manic writing phase' slowly matured, the relevance revealed. At times it is a little OTT. But, my recommendation is 'stick with it.'

The two main characters in Dark Lies can in no way be considered 'traditional'. Katie is damaged. Self-destructive. Within a whisker of having no job. Nathan is damaged. Disliked. Distrusted. Trying desperately to save himself.

I can't say I 'liked' this book. Not in the traditional sense. But once I got past the first 30%, I became glued to it. Desperate to see where it was going. By the time I was finished, I felt like I had been white water rafting on a grade 5 run. Without the raft. Exhausted, battered, bruised but exhilarated. And definitely in line for the next in the series.

3.5 stars

Thank you to Bookouture via Netgalley for providing a digital copy of Dark Lies by Nick Hollin for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the 'about' page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system.

This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

3☆ Interesting Characters, A slower Paced Thriller.

Dark lies ( also named In the Blood) is a story about secrets, serial killer, gruesome murders, getting into the mind of a serial killer, plenty of twists and turns.

 I did enjoy Dark Lies but Unfortunately I found it to be somewhat disjointed and a little confusing.
I found myself backtracking to make sure I was heading in the right direction with my thoughts.

I did like the detectives especially Nathan who was a Criminal Psychologist.
I found his work to be really intriguing how he can profile a killer and get inside their heads. He was a damaged soul but really good at his job.

I would of preferred to get more back story on DI Katie Rhodes and Nathan before they stopped working together.
I felt like as a reader I was dropped into the middle of their lives. Which made it take longer to connect with them.

I am interested to see where Nick takes his characters next as this is the first book in the series.

I would recommend Dark Lies as it is a good read. But i would say it takes time to unravel the plot and get to grips with the story so be patient with it.
A good attempt as a first in the series.
Intrigued to see what's next!

Wasn't able to read it ,because it disappeared off my kindle app .

As much as I love the characters, this book was exhausting to read. The main characters spent the entire book running to one clue after another. One of the two main characters would suddenly have an overly dramatic epiphany and then run off half cocked to whatever was revealed. Too many of those and you lose interest in the overall story.

I am going to be 100% honest about this and admit that it took me up to 15% of the book to understand what was going on, and at times I was a bit confused but I am glad that I carried on with the book as it does get a whole lot better and smoulders on to the gripping ending.

It is quite slow paced at the outset but it does pick up and as we get to meet the characters and unravel the past of the mysterious Nathan the book gets a whole lot better. I liked the main characters and The Cartoonist was great - a very complex killer.

3.5 stars from me rounded up to 4 stars for Goodreads and Amazon. Looking forward to the next in the series now we have met Katie and Nathan and started to get to know them, I just wish we had a bit more of their back story at the outset.