Years later, here I am with a review. I've been having a craving to keep reading this series (now that there are 7 books), but this one has disappointed me in some ways. I didn't feel engaged. It felt boring, with little action or stakes. I didn't care much about Erika and her personal issues. They seemed like a tagline just to give her some character. And the main plot was very predictable. I got most of it correct half way through.

Will I keep reading? yes. One more to see if the series keeps up the pace that I fell in love with the first book.

Dark Water is the third installment in the Erika Foster series. The series is set in England, and Erika has been demoted, taken out of homicide, and put in a department in charge of narcotics. When Erika’s dive team recovers a huge narcotics stash in a quarry, they also discover and bring up the skeleton of a child that has been there for many years. The bones are those of Jessica Collins who disappeared twenty-six years prior while on her way to a birthday party, and Erika begs to be in charge of solving that case. As she investigates, she uncovers secrets that pit family members against each other, as well as a scandal in the police department involving dirty cops.

The English culture is evident in this novel, and makes for a charming atmosphere. The author uses English idioms and phrases, revealing the differences in culture. There are actually two stories going on at the same time in this novel, and Bryndza joins them in a way where the stories combine and flow. He has also done an excellent job of developing his characters. There will be no doubt in readers’ minds how a character looks or acts, and this is helpful. Erika, the protagonist, isn’t particularly likeable. She isn’t nice to her co-workers (or others), and in some ways has a bad attitude. Some of the other characters are more likeable, and for some reason, it all works.

As in any good thriller, Dark Water includes the elements of building suspense, a good story, and a surprise ending. In this case, most readers will be blindsided by the ending since it is so unexpected.

This is a good novel, and is recommended for those thriller readers who want to read something different.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

This author has so many series on the go, I didn't realize this is a third book in a series I haven't started. I'm hoping to get to read the full series, but do not have the time to get caught up for review purposes.

First published in Great Britain in 2016; published by Grand Central Publishing on October 1, 2019

Dark Water is the third novel in the Erika Foster series that began with The Girl in the Ice. DCI Erika Foster is now assigned to a unit that handles drug cases and other big investigations. As she leads a team that pulls a chest of heroin from the bottom of a flooded quarry, the divers also find the skeletal remains of a 7-year-old girl who went missing in 1990, 26 years earlier. While Erika’s until does not handle homicides, she was a murder investigator before her current assignment. Risking the wrath of her supervisor, she pulls some strings and is assigned to lead the investigation into Jessica Collins’ murder.

The original investigation was a mess that resulted in a successful lawsuit by one of the suspects. DCI Amanda Baker, who was part of that investigation, became the scapegoat for what was seen as a botched investigation. She was fired and is now a hard-drinking retiree. To be fair, Amanda deserved her fate. She arrested Trevor Marksman because he had a sex offender conviction and appeared to have an interest in Jessica (or girls who resembled Jessica). He had a solid alibi and had to be released, but Amanda tipped off local vigilantes who burned down Marksman’s house with Marksman inside, leaving him with permanent scars. She also shagged Jessica’s father, much to the displeasure of Jessica’s mother. While it isn’t surprising that Amanda is drowning her sorrows during her declining years, the sorrows are largely self-inflicted.

DC Crawford, a part of Erika’s team, was also a part of Amanda’s team. He seems to be less than forthcoming about his knowledge of the original investigation. Another thorn in Erika’s foot is a high-powered barrister named Oscar Browne, who was camping with Jessica’s sister Laura when Jessica disappeared. Oscar seems to feel the need to intervene in the reopened investigation to protect the feelings of Jessica’s mother.

Amanda had the quarry searched a few weeks after Jessica went missing and doesn’t understand why the body wasn’t discovered at the time. That’s one of many mysteries that the intricate plot challenges the reader to solve. Another is whether Marksman was innocent or guilty. Erika regards Bob Jennings, a mentally impaired man who lived in a shack near the quarry, as another good suspect, but he hung himself and is unavailable for questioning. Another sex offender eventually enters the plot to add to a growing list of suspects. New murders ensue, adding fresh meat to the mystery.

Erika is assembled from the small details that give a character credibility. Her Slovakian sister Lenka comes for a visit, adding a bit of family tension, given her husband’s connection to the Mafia. Erika is a bit cold and standoffish — in other words, she’s British — but characters don’t need to be huggable to drive a mystery, and she serves well as the kind of protagonist who, with plodding determination, is able to solve a whodunit. Amanda, for all her faults, finds momentary redemption by taking a break from the bottle to offer some help that contributes to the mystery's resolution.

My knock on Robert Bryndza is that his style is just as plodding as his detectives. He doesn't bring much zest to his prose, resulting in a story that bogs down at times. The reader's persistence is nevertheless rewarded with a clever payoff in the form of an unexpected but credible resolution to the mystery.

RECOMMENDED

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar

Dark Water begins as all of Robert Bryndza’s stories do, with a body being disposed of. On an autumn night of 1990, two shadowy figures drop the body of Jessica Collins in a quarry, where she will stay for some time. Twenty six years later, Erika Foster and her new team are looking for drugs in the Hayes quarry trying to find the evidence to bust a drug dealer, after finding what they are looking for the diving team finds the remains of Jessica Collins. At first, the case is not given to her, but later on, when the DNA matches Jessica the case is reopened, and Erika asks some favors to get the case and find the killers of the young girl.

Erika sets her team and old friends DI Moss and DI Peterson to look into the old files and evidence with new eyes. She meets the Collins and learns that they have changed a lot from the family in the newspapers and reports. Mary and Martin have separated, but not divorce, Laura Collins and Tody Collins are now all grown up and still mourn their sister in their own way. The Collins have secrets and many people are interested in Jessica’s death, but some want the truth to remain a secret and will do everything they can to do it, even kill again.

It’s now to Erika and her team job to find what happened to Jessica all those years ago and solve the case before the killer get away.

I like the Detective Erika Foster series; the characters and the stories are compelling and want you to continue reading. I’m happy that Erika is growing with each book and relies more on her colleagues and friends.

Something that I enjoy about Robert Bryndza’s books is that I can never predict who the killer is. The worst thing is that we get the POV of the killer but don’t get their names until it’s finally revealed. Compared to other mystery novels this is an aspect that I truly like, and it gives mystery its true meaning. I like to read a lot of crime and mystery books, and this series always has me in suspense and keeps me hanging until the end.

In this new story, we get to see more of the personal life of Erika. After a couple of years of her husband’s death, we see an Erika that has started to move on and admit that she doesn’t want to be alone anymore. With this, we start to see the beginning signs of a romance starting to flourish with one of her co-workers. At the same time, we get to finally meet Erika’s sister Lenka and her nieces and nephew. While it is not the best-planned visit by Lenka, or under the best circumstances, it does give Erika the family comfort that she needs given the case she is working on.

In Dark Water, we get the return of many characters from the previous books, DI Moss and DI Peterson make their comeback and other familiar faces. Among the old and new characters, new subplots are created that lay the foundation for future narratives in books.

I’m a fan of the crime mystery and solving of cases, reading about the process and work that detectives do is the best. In Dark Water, Erika starts to make a name for herself by being known as the one solving cases nobody can or wants to try. Everyone thought the Jessica Collins kidnapping was a dead end and a career-ender.

If you are a fan of Robert Bryndza and his work, then I recommend Dark Water. Erika Foster’s new case is old, but she has decided to give justice to a little girl that went to a friend’s birthday party and never returned home. Not all secrets stay hidden, sometimes water brings it back up.

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*

Dark Water
(Detective Erika Foster #3)
by Robert Bryndza

Kindle Edition, 341 pages
Published October 20th 2016 by Bookouture




Goodreads synopsis:
Beneath the water the body sank rapidly. She would lie still and undisturbed for many years but above her on dry land, the nightmare was just beginning.

When Detective Erika Foster receives a tip-off that key evidence for a major narcotics case was stashed in a disused quarry on the outskirts of London, she orders for it to be searched. From the thick sludge the drugs are recovered, but so is the skeleton of a young child.

The remains are quickly identified as seven-year-old Jessica Collins. The missing girl who made headline news twenty-six years ago.

As Erika tries to piece together new evidence with the old, she must dig deeper and find out more about the fractured Collins family and the original detective, Amanda Baker. A woman plagued by her failure to find Jessica. Erika soon realizes this is going to be one of the most complex and demanding cases she has ever taken on.

Is the suspect someone close to home? Someone is keeping secrets. Someone who doesn’t want this case solved. And they’ll do anything to stop Erika from finding the truth.

From the million-copy bestselling author of The Girl in the Ice and The Night Stalker, comes the third heart-stopping book in the Detective Erika Foster series.

***

4.5 Stars

This is the third book in the Detective Erika Foster series by Robert Bryndza.

Bryndza sucked me in from the very beginning. I read this in one day practically straight through!

Basic synopsis: A tip leads to the discovery of a body in a 26 year old missing child case. The remains of a young girl are found in a quarry submerged in a box. Detective Erika Foster fights to get assigned to the case much to her superior’s chagrin and gets put on the case. She picks her team and they get to work.

There are roadblocks all over this case and at every turn Erika finds one dead end after another. She does find the original detective from twenty-six years earlier but the woman had turned to drinking and was a pale comparison to who she used to be. Being a part of the case spurs her to life somewhat and she cleans up her act as she digs for clues to give to Erika.

This book really keeps you on the edge of your seat almost from the very beginning. I liked how they tried to pair the beginning romance between Peterson and Erika with the mystery of the search for clues. And then when her sister showed up with all her kids in tow, what a hoot! I wonder where her working relationship with her boss will go since he seems interested in her and she rebuffed his advances.

This is a complex book with a plot that keeps you guessing and suspects galore. Witnesses purposely hide details for what seems no reason which makes everything take much longer than it should. I am curious to see where all Erika’s relationship stand when the next book comes out. It will definitely be an interesting ride, that’s for sure!

If you love thrillers, police procedurals or detective fiction, definitely check this one out. You won’t be disappointed.

I received this as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in return for an honest review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this title.

The third installment in author Robert Bryndza's popular Erika Foster series finds her in a new assignment working with new colleagues. And not very happy about it. She is gamely trying to make the best of her circumstances and thrilled when divers find the ten kilos of heroin packed into a waterproof container that sent them to the abandoned quarry. When they also find the skeletal remains of seven-year-old Jessica Collins, Erika naturally wonders who would dump the body of a small child thirty feet down in the freezing blackness . . . less than one mile from where she disappeared. She asks to be allowed to lead the search for her killer so that her family can know what happened to the child and lay her to rest.

When her request is granted, Erika is reunited with her old teammates, including Detectives Peterson and Moss. The original investigation was led by former Detective Amanda Baker, who honed in on a suspect. However, Amanda had no choice but to release him and from that point, things went terribly awry. Amanda ended up retiring early and in the ensuring years has become an alcoholic hermit. But she has maintained a relationship with Detective Crawford, who was also assigned to the case years ago. He lost interest in police work years ago and Amanda pulled him into selling seized drugs fifteen years ago. When the investigation is reopened, Amanda demands that he funnel information to her, threatening to expose him if he doesn't acquiesce.

Jessica's family fractured after her disappearance. Her father, Martin, has a new life that includes a new wife and two young children. Jessica's older sister, Laura, is married with two young children of her own. Younger brother Toby, who is gay, has never been accepted by their mother, Marianne, a religious fanatic who lives alone in the family home. She has told herself for twenty-six years that Jessica is alive and will return, so confirmation of Jessica's death all those years ago is a huge blow and she does not handle the news well. In fact, the more Erika learns about Jessica's family, the more questions arise.

As the investigation proceeds, neither Erika nor Amanda is aware that their every movement is being watched and all of their conversations overheard. Someone has gone to great lengths to install listening devices in strategic locations and hack their cellular telephones in order to stay apprised of developments in the case . . . and ensure that Erika does not discover the truth.

As in the two previous installments in the series, The Girl in the Ice and The Night Stalker, Bryndza explores Erika's professional and personal lives. She is a deeply flawed, but compelling and intriguing characters who recognizes that her past mistakes have hampered her advancement. When given the assignments she seeks, Erika is expected to deliver results -- and correspondingly motivated to do so. Bryndza continues exploring Erika's ongoing grief over her husband's death, providing moving insight into how difficult she still finds living without him as time passes, taking her life further from the moment when she lost him. She also must deal with the unannounced arrival from Slovakia of her sister and her three children, all of whom descend upon Erika's small apartment.

Thus, Erika is surrounded by an eclectic cast of supporting players, many of whom could be plausible suspects. Dark Water is the most emotionally nuanced of the three novels, and not merely because of the subject matter -- the disappearance and death of a young child. Bryndza examines the history and dynamics of Jessica's family and the revelations of their dysfunction compel the story forward. He never allows the pace to slacken, even as the focus shifts between characters and settings, and he seamlessly eliminates suspects as Erika and her colleagues uncover how the characters have been bound together for decades and their motivations. Bryndza cleverly intertwine old evidence with present-day discoveries, combining the use of modern technology to unravel secrets contained in older methodology. And he delivers stunning revelations that provide cohesion and a satisfying ending to his tightly-imagined plot.

Oh my. Good thing I'm a fast reader. From the moment I booted up my Kindle Fire and opened this book, I didn't want to put it down. As it was, it took two days - although that's not bad considering all the other "stuff" I had to do in between. I'll give a special shout-out to my ever-lovin' hubby, who didn't blink an eye when I told him dinner would be a little later than usual tonight because I was too close to the end to stop).

Still another thank you goes to the author and publisher, via NetGalley, for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review. To that end, will "Wow!" suffice?

For everyone else, a bit of a plot description is in order. This is the third in the series featuring Detective Erika Foster (preceded by The Girl in the Ice and Night Stalker. Here, she's serving at the Bromley Police Station in London, where she was transferred three months earlier. She didn't arrive without baggage; her police career is dotted with successes and failures, with one of the latter involving the death of her beloved husband, for which she's blamed herself ever since. She's an immigrant from Slovakia, and she's had to fight her own feelings of inadequacy that have been augmented along the way by some of her police colleagues.

Already, though, she's bored with her assignment that's limited to investigating organized crime cases. But as luck would have it, when she orders a search of an old quarry after getting a tip that a big stash of narcotics is at the bottom, something else turns up: The remains of a young girl. Almost immediately, the child is identified as Jessica Collins, who as a seven-year-old disappeared from her home 26 years ago. The case made big-time headlines back then, but no perpetrator was ever found.

It's an uphill battle to get assigned to the cold case, but Erika is determined to get it and keeps dogging her superiors until they cave in - albeit with orders to get it wrapped up as quickly as possible or else. Erika manages to get the go-ahead to beef up her staff and turns to a couple of former co-workers to help (readers of those first two books will recognize them). But at the git-go, the case looks hopeless; the primary suspect who was cleared of the abduction all those years ago sued the city and won, making it nearly impossible for the officers to approach him again. The missing child's parents have split up, leaving the family in shambles. The original case detective, Amanda Baker, became a pariah, left the force and turned into an alcoholic hermit. And, when another suspect is identified, it turns out he died many years ago and is, obviously, unavailable for comment. As if that weren't enough, roadblocks keep popping up to impede the investigation that may be coming from a source closer to home.

Getting to the truth turns out to be a series of wrong and right turns, stops and starts - and a couple of big surprises. Only two things, in fact, could I count on, the first of which is that the next chapter would be even better than the one I was reading. The second? Any time two or more characters got together, one of them was sure to ask, "Would you like some tea?" Gotta love those Brits!

Much as I like the author, this one just didn’t work for me.

My mood when reading this might best be described as a mix of kind of bored and kind of confused.

It took me a very long time to care about our crime and the *who* of it all. In addition, the *who* wasn’t much of a surprise, though the *how* of it was.

And there were some things that simply didn’t add up for me.

Just putting this one down to a misstep for me. I like the author and will happily read him in the future.

*ARC Provided via Net Galley

Full review to be published online in mid October.

DARK WATER is the third book in Robert Bryndza's entertaining 'Detectiver Erika Foster' series. The series is currently up to six books, and while I've read all the other books, I managed somehow to miss this entry. It's good to be able to fill in the missing link on my reading of the series.

When Detective Erika Foster receives a tip-off that key evidence for a major narcotics case was stashed in a disused quarry on the outskirts of London, she orders for it to be searched. From the thick sludge the drugs are recovered, but so is the skeleton of a young child.

DCI Erika Foster is now working on an anti-drug team. When she and her team have the divers search for a stash of drugs in Hayes Quarry, she finds more than she bargained for. The body of 7-year old Jessica Collins is recovered, after 26 years. Erika fights her way onto the case, and fights to get her old team of Moss and Peterson back too.

As Erika tries to piece together new evidence with the old, she must dig deeper and find out more about the fractured Collins family and the original detective, Amanda Baker. A woman plagued by her failure to find Jessica. Erika soon realises this is going to be one of the most complex and demanding cases she has ever taken on.

According to DCI Erika Foster: "We've got everything and nothing."

Erika Foster is feeling the tilt of the uneven ground. She is no longer on the Murder Investigation Team in Lewishham Row. She's been transferred to the Bromley Police Station working in the CID Division fighting organized crime. A potential opportunity to put a notorious drug dealer away has her new team searching the bottom of a dark and dank quarry for kilos of heroin. Instead, the divers bring up the skeletal remains of a long missing seven year old girl.

What transpires here out is the rapid fire pinball game that will eventually take DCI Foster into some shady situations. Nothing is what it appears to be in this one. Foster manages to get herself assigned to resurrect this unsolved mystery from 1990. The previous detectives ran into deadends. And Foster seems to be dangling on the edge of despair as well. But Foster dogs a case like no other. Although her private life is at a standstill, it provides her the impetus to forge ahead relentlessly. Nothing and no one waiting for her at home.

Robert Bryndza does it again. He presents his main character of DCI Erika Foster as quick-witted and determined as ever. The police procedures are well-executed and planned. The finale will certainly leap at you from a completely different direction.

Bryndza has developed quite the talent for molding and sculpting his characters with each book that he turns out. They become more fine-tuned within the human element. He allows us to see layer upon layer beneath the surface. And because of that, we are privy to the depth of Erika Foster's inner core. Fascinating, indeed. I'm sure that the talented Bryndza has quite the tale to tell lifting stone upon stone with each book. And we will be locked in tight for each exciting ride. Bring it, Bryndza!

I received a copy of Dark Water through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Bookouture and to Robert Bryndza for the opportunity.

While searching a quarry for a hidden drug stash, Detective Erika Foster's team stumble across the skeleton of a young child. The remains are identified as Jessica Collins, 7 years of age when she disappeared 26 years ago.

There is something about this child that touches her and she is determined to find the who and why this child was killed.

The original detective on the case was Amanda Baker. Time hasn't been kind to her as she has always felt guilty about not being able to solve the case and bring Jessica home to her family.

Practically starting from scratch, Foster and her team start looking at family and friends. The family is keeping secrets. Do the family know more about what happened to Jessica than they are letting on? Someone doesn't want the light shined on a dark secret .... and they will do anything at all to protect themselves.

I stumbled across this author with his first book in this series .. and fell in love with not only his writing, but the characters, as well.

Erika has to be tough to do the job she does, but in DARK WATER, she seems to be somewhat more harsh in the way she treats people. In this story the reader gets to see more of her personal life, when her sister and her three children come to stay with her. Erika is also moving closer to a personal relationship with one of her team members.

Red herrings are sprinkled here and there and the ending was something I never could have imagined. It's a compelling book that I didn't want to put down once started.

This one is okay as a stand alone, but as usual, I always recommend starting at the beginning to absorb all those little nuggets of gold you might miss otherwise.

Many thanks to the author / Bookouture / NetGalley who provided a digital copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Dark Water by Robert Bryndza is the third book in the British police procedural series featuring Erika Foster.

Following a tip by the suspects wife Erika and the narcotics team are in search of a huge stash of drugs in a quarry . Along with the drugs they also find a dead body of a seven year old Jessica Collins gone missing 26 years back. The case was mishandled way back then which ended with the lead investigator , Amanda Baker, losing her job over it but Erika and her team do not intend to drop the ball again on little Jessica.

This is a great addition to the series with Erika Foster at her usual abrasive, no nonsense self. A complex plot with an ending that caught me by surprise. A must read mystery lovers

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.