This is the 9th book in the Calladine and Bayliss series by author Helen H Durrant, that can be read as a stand alone.
I am a regular reader of this authors work and always find them to be entertaining reads with meaty characters and decent plots. This book meets those standards and is a great read.
DI Tom Calladine is typical of the strength of the characters in this series. He loves his job and gives it 100 per cent but like a lot of fictional detectives his personal life does not run so smoothly. A failed marriage before the age of twenty-one he is now trying to find love again with his new girlfriend Layla. This story follows Detective Calladine and Bayliss hunt for Sophie Alder, a missing 3 year old of local factory owner, Richard Alder. Richard and his wife Annie are locals from the rough housing estate who’ve made it big. With a crime wave hitting Leesworth, the police are being stretched to the limits and a local vigilante group decides to take their own action. Police get involved when the group catch a burglar who ends up dead.
The Detectives are told of a mysterious character called 'Street' who appears to be masterminding the increase in drugs and theft. The hunt is on to catch Street and find the missing girl which is further complicated by Calladine's personal romance issues.
If you have not read the writing of this author then it is well worth a try. Good solid read.

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

A pretty good mystery and very easy to get into. Would be interested in reading more from this author.

I love the calladine and bayliss books and this was no exception. Brilliant story fantastic characters and Tom and Ruth were fab as always. I love trying to work out who the baddie is. Definitely 5* from me

Helen is as good as always. This series of hers is perfect for a short read. I find them to the point and well written. I'm never disappointed

Dead Guilty is a great read - a multilayered police procedural with several related crimes surrounding the central case of a missing child. Having just discovered that this the 9th, yes 9th, book featuring these two detectives, I’m glad I discovered the series and can’t wait to read some of the earlier ones. Highly recommended.

Thank you NetGalley and Joffe Books for the eARC.
This is the 9th in the Calladyne & Bayliss series and as all of them, this is a good read.
The kidnapping of a young child starts off the story. The father is a successful business owner and both he and his wife are heartbroken. As time progresses it seems there's a lot more going on: drugs, murders and a drug kingpin by the name of 'Street' seem to be involved in all of it. 'Street' proves impossible to find. The kids who work for him have never met him or spoken to him - they only get texts telling them what to do and where to go.
I didn't guess the protagonist at all, it was quite a surprise to me.
The whole series is an easy, enjoyable read. Can't wait for no. 10! Recommended!

What a book. I was hooked just from the cover and description. Thankfully I was not disappointed. This is a fast paced read. Easy to read. Your on the edge of your seat wondering which way it’s heading. Fantastic read

When the young daughter of a prominent businessman is kidnapped it seems as though its a straight forward case of a ransom and return, but all is not what it aeems and Calladine must locate and return the child as well as deal with seemingly random murders and a vigilante group

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC, which I have enjoyed reading.
DI Calladine and his team are a hard working police team investigating the influx of drugs and a series of murders. It is an easy to read police detective story and is one of a series in The Calladine and Bayliss Mystery Series.
Recommended.

This is my first Calladine, and Bayliss mystery; very enjoyable laid back characters. The detectives offset the gritty crimes being committed. The problems for me, are, I do not like made up towns, you can put your finger on Google Maps, and a crime has more than likely been committed there. I also am shocked this book was launching with so many proofreading mistakes?! It is an easy read on a rainy afternoon.
Thank you Netgalley!
carolintallahassee.com

Another top notch read in this well established series with the return of several characters and a fast paced twisted plot

I liked it! The characters captured my interest. You could feel the office politics as well as the drama of the case. A missing child is priority one. We learn about the detectives as well as the interpersonal relationships of the interested party. The twist at the end was a good one. I thought the book was a good mystery.

So, I’ve found this crime thriller late on into the series. ‘Dead Guilty’, is book nine in the Calladine and Bayliss set of novels, but it reads well as a standalone. The crime and detection are completed within this book, and the necessary backstory for the main characters is carefully woven into the story.

Calladine and Bayliss are a likeable detective team, Believable characters they both have flaws and personal lives that cause them problems, but they are clever, dedicated professionals and work well together with a small team of interesting characters. This story covers a wide range of topics; child abduction, drug trafficking, corruption and murder. The plot is easy to follow, but complex, with many suspects, lots of false leads and an authentic, menacing ethos, as crime escalates to unmanageable proportions.

Did I identify the antagonist? Yes, I did, but not immediately. Although this story deals with gritty crimes, it is an enjoyable easy read, something for a lazy afternoon in the garden or the beach.

I received a copy of this book from Joffe Books via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Dead Guilty by Helen H. Durrant is an alluring read. Easy to get lost in the charming English town and the characters. Don’t get too comfortable though because there are lots of twins and turns. I love this series and always lo k forward to the next tale.

Dead Guilty by Helen Durrant .We start off with the abduction of a local business man's daughter and off we go into of calladine and bayliss but enough of me boring you with my inapt description of the storyline you can get that written professionally off the website I'll just say it's a brilliantly written book for a brilliant series so I'd recommend any to give it a read they won't be sorry

I have been a Detectives Bayliss and Calladine groupie ever since I picked up their first book, which only seems weeks ago but it’s actually a couple of years ago. Little did I realise that the series would continue for as long as it has (not that I am complaining because I love the detective duo) and that the series would continue to go from strength to strength. Each time Helen releases a new book in the series, I put all of my other plans on ice and I endeavour to read it just as soon as possible before waiting (impatiently) for the next one. Well ladies and gents, the wait is temporarily over because the most recent book in the series is called ‘Dead Guilty’ and it was released on 3rd May 2019. I absolutely blinking well loved it but more about that in a bit.
I absolutely adore the detective duo Bayliss and Calladine. They have worked together for a fair while now and at times they seem like an old married couple. They know what makes the other one tick and they both know that they can turn to the other one if the chips are down or if they need a friend. Of course with such good friendships comes brutal honesty and each will not hesitate to tell the other one the truth, even if they don’t want to hear it. Any disputes that they have with each other don’t seem to last for long. Both detectives are strong characters but they have their vulnerable sides, they are loyal, stubborn, determined and they both share a gut instinct that is almost 100% accurate. If something doesn’t seem right to them, then that means that it usually isn’t and they will not hesitate to investigate until their curiosity has been satisfied and the matter has been investigated as thoroughly as possible.
Oh my goodness gracious me, ‘Dead Guilty’ was another one hell of an often brutal but thrilling tale by Helen. For me, the story was perfectly paced. It certainly hit the ground running and maintained the pace throughout. I felt like it was one of those books that you didn’t dare put down because you feared missing something. The book wasn’t exactly glued to my hand but it might as well have been because it came everywhere with me. To say that reading ‘Dead Guilty’ became addictive seems to be the massive understatement of the year. Whilst I had ‘Dead Guilty’ in my hands, I simply lived, breathed and blooming well enjoyed reading the story. Whilst I was reading, I lost all sense of time and when I first looked up to check how much I had read, I was stunned to realise that I had read over half of the book. I seemed to race through this book and it seemed to take next to no time to get to the end. I was most disappointed to get to the end of the book. I realise that sounds bad but I don’t mean it to. I was enjoying the author’s writing style, the storylines and the characters so much that I just wanted the book to continue on and on and on. In fact the only negative thing about this book was that it had to end.
Helen has one of those writing styles that draws you in from the first word on the first page and she constantly dangles enough bait to keep you interested in the story and makes you feel desperate to find out who is doing what to whom and why. That’s what happened to me anyway. I was gripped by the story all the way through and I was frequently on the edge of my seat, which got rather painful at times but you don’t want to hear about that. There were also times when I almost had to read through my fingers as I feared what was going to happen next but then I realised that if I wanted to learn how the story concluded then of course I had to keep reading. Silly me.
In short, I absolutely loved, no make that adored, reading ‘Dead Guilty’ and Helen surely has another bestselling hit on her hands. The series featuring Detectives Bayliss and Calladine just keeps getting better and better. I wholeheartedly recommend this author and her books to other readers. I can’t wait to read what she comes up with next. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

Great book will be reading other books by this author.
Will also recommend this book to others.
Great read! 5*****

DEAD GUILTY by HELEN H. DURRANT

My first time reading that author.

4 stars.
Well written, fast paced thriller! Good plot and twits, strong characters...
I enjoyed it. The kind of book you don't want to put down!

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC of this book. This is my honest review. All opinions are my own.

DEAD GUILTY by author Helen H. Durrant is book nine of a new series of detective thrillers featuring D.S. Ruth Bayliss and D.I. Tom Calladine. Having read all the previous books in this series and really enjoyed them and the characters, it was like old home week, touching base with some of my old friends. I looked forward to starting the next crime thriller in the series. This book will have you turning the pages until the shocking conclusion. This is a crime thriller with an ending with a huge twist.

Detective inspector Tom Calladine is a workaholic, totally devoted to his job. But his personal life has not been so rewarding, being married and divorced before he was twenty-one. Now he has a new girlfriend, Layla, that lives down the street with Tom’s dog, Sam for safety.

DETECTIVES CALLADINE AND BAYLISS HUNT FOR A MISSING CHILD.

Sophie Alder is the three-year-old daughter of local factory owner, Richard Alder. Richard and his wife Annie are locals from the rough housing estate who’ve made it big. DS Ruth Baylis and DI Tom Calladine suspect that she has been kidnapped.

Currently there is a crime wave in Leesworth and the police can’t stay on top of it. Break-ins were increasing in the area. One young thief, a neighbour’s son broke into Calladine’s house. This lad was working with a villain, referred to as “Street”, robbing houses. Street is the mastermind behind the increase in drugs and theft in the area.

With two more murders the detectives race against time to find “Street” and the missing child.

This book can be read as standalone but it's always best to read a series in order to fully appreciate the ongoing character development, though the plots are standalones. This is a series I will continue to follow.

Looking for a brilliant best-selling crime mystery with great detectives? Look no further. Highly recommend this exciting new crime fiction writer.

Many thanks to Joffe Books via Netgalley for my copy.

Don't let the fact that this is number nine in a series keep you from reading it. Each story in this series is a stand alone - meaning that while the core group of investigators stays the same throughout each book, the bad guys are always caught and they do not end on a cliff-hanger. There will of course be some references to the previous novels, but I don't feel like it takes away from the readers enjoyment of this one. Nor do I believe it would be overly confusing for a new reader.

Speaking strictly on this novel, I was completely surprised at the twists and turns that this story takes. This author is certainly more than capable of weaving together a complex and intriguing story that draws the reader in and keeps them guessing until the often surprising reveal. I loved the interactions between the characters, the easy banter between colleagues, and even the more personal side threads that we see glimpses of. When you blend them together you get a wonderfully written story that seems real.

I would highly recommend this story to those who are fans of high paced thrillers that keep you guessing. I would read more from this author.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.