Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

This book took me a couple of attempts to get into - possibly because its a sequel and I haven't read the first book. For this reason I didn't really connect with the story.

This is the follow up to 'To the Lions'. Despite thinking I wouldn't bother to read the sequel I thought I'd give it a go.

The premise is an interesting one, messages are found sewn into garments made in factories in India. They say women are being taken and forced to have babies, which are taken from them.

Casey, an investigative journalist, is back and with her team they try to find out if the messages are real or an elaborate hoax. They discover that couples desperate to have a baby are paying a high price for surrogacy, which they think is legitimate. A murky operation is uncovered.

This should be a fast paced, tense novel. However, I found a lot of it really dragged on. Apart from a small section near the end, none of it had me gripped. I can't put my finger on why this is. Again, I haven't warmed to many of the characters and still find Casey very unlikeable.

It seemed like there was a lot of jumping around from one part to the next and at times it felt a bit disjointed.

The storyline about Miranda and her husband just fizzled out and was never mentioned again. It felt like it was included to tie in with the main plot idea.

I wouldn't say it was totally predictable but I had a fair idea of who was going to live. A lot of the parts that had the potential to be tense, weren't.

I found the very end rather meh and cliche. For all her bravado and tough exterior, Casey can be quite immature and it made me roll my eyes.

Overall, I was disappointed with this which is a real shame as I thought the idea behind the plot was good.

2.5 stars rounded down to 2.

Thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy for review.

I adored To The Lions and really engaged with main protagonist Casey Benedict, an investigative journalist. So I was eager to read the follow up even though life has meant I've only just gotten to it.

In this follow up Holly Watts has really done a brilliant job, no book 2 angst here, once more we have a very addictive, extremely authentic and hugely thought provoking narrative with its central themes ripped straight from the headlines.

The story twists and turns whilst never losing sight of the important issues, Casey once more keeps you following in her wake as she determinedly battles her way to the truth and it is utterly absorbing from first page to last.

An author I will be following. Recommended.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the arc, which I have enjoyed reading.
This is the second book by Holly Watts about journalism and where Casey and Miranda play the major parts. The Dead Line is about surrogacy and wealth and opportunity.
The storyline was excellent and totally engrossing and intriguing, the characters were interesting and the whole newspaper headlines topic and the urgency were fascinating. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
Highly recommended.

This book is a follow up to To the lions and I do think that readers should aim to read the series in order

This book is a very well written book. It is page turning, although it did take me a few chapters to get into it

This book is very well plotted and researched and I will definitely be reading the next in the series

This was a fast paced thriller that never seemed to drag. It was tense and gripping and kept me intrigued. This is shaping up to be an interesting series.

Really enjoyed this. Modern slavery, a subject that is so important today, wrapped up in a genuinely tense and exciting mystery. Highly recommended.

When a plea for help is found on the label of a skirt, journalist Casey Benedict starts to investigate. The trail leads her half way around the world, involving a British ambassador, a Harley Street clinic, surrogate babies, desperate parents and a Bangladeshi refugee camp. Can Casey get to the truth and emerge unscathed?

This was a great premise for a story - the desperation of couples for a baby, when they are unable to conceive naturally, and the lengths they and their families are willing to go to, to achieve the ultimate prize - and in parts The Dead Line delivered.

For me, the main problem was the length of the story. It just dragged on in places, with pages and pages where nothing seemed to be happening. I’m not expecting action on every page, and I usually prefer stories with plenty of description and build up. However, his just seemed to go on and on, with still a frantic finish in the last couple of chapters.

A good storyline, with lots of promise, and ok if you want something to keep you occupied on a very long journey.

Holly Watt’s The Dead Line is the second case for Investigative Journalist, Casey Benedict, following on from ToThe Lions. Once you have got over the feeling of sadness and nostalgia for the days when newspapers had the kind of resources that allowed their journalists to travel all over the world in pursuit of a strong story, you can really get stuck into this fascinating thriller that has everything working for it.
The Dead Line takes us on a thrilling journey that starts in the offices of the London based newspaper, The Post when journalist Casey is handed a scrap of paper from one of the fashion staff A message has been found hidden in clothes sold in a fashionable shop in the new West London shopping Centre. Following the trail of that message leads to a story which involves kidnap and much worse for young Bangladeshi women.
That message leads Casey and her colleagues, Miranda and Hessa, on a thrilling and dangerous trail which takes her first to Washington DC where among the lobbyists, PR people and politicians dining in the Four Seasons she is able to establish the first link in a human chain that ends in people trafficking and the sale of babies. From Washington Casey heads to the beautiful and serene Greek Island of Paxos, via Corfu, to quiz the former British Ambassador to Dhaka, then onwards to the capital of Bangladesh and to Nice on the French Riviera.
Casey’s Paxos trip gives her most what she needs to head for Bangladesh and the Rohingya refugee camp, but first she has to make a couple of stops in Devon and to Harley Street where a consultant practices helping childless couples achieve their hearts’ desire.
Armed now with the information she needs Casey and her friend and bodyguard, Ed head for Dhaka via Quatar. Aiming for the Rohingya camp, they stop at the fishing port of Cox’s Bazaar, home to many refugee agencies and visit some of the garment factories of Chittagong.
This journey serves to highlight the disparity between the seriously wealthy and those who suffer for them. Holly Watt’s storyline is a forensic examination of the exploitation of Bangladeshi women and girls for no other reason than making the rich richer. Meticulously researched and unhesitating in its willingness to link the respected of British society with the most vicious and corrupt practices taking place at the expense of women in the third world, Holly Watt’s book will leave you appalled.
Verdict: The Dead Line is an excellent thriller full of action, pace and colour, but it also has an important role to play in highlighting the inhumane practices surrounding the Rohingya Refugee camps and in highlighting the disparities between those who have and those who do not.

After a slowish build up, rehashing how the journalists who will follow this story got together, it took off - then I was bemused thinking how a north England newspaper’s junior/new journalist would get a story so early on in her career which takes her to Bangladesh, and into the fraught world of the dark side of fashion. But she does it! Casey the intrepid and witty and fearless journo make the journey and tracks it all down - all very authentic too, about the ways and means orders are crossed and stories winkled out - exciting, gripping and great characters including Bangladeshi characters. Social realism added onto a thriller - refreshingly told without the stereotyped tropes of women journos - it feels real. Terrific

An interesting fast paced read. There is plenty of action and suspense.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

My copy was very hard to read because of the broken up words and poor formatting. It seems like a good story

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for the ARC.

This is a well-written, fast-paced thriller; the reader is thrown head-first into the urgently busy offices of The Post where Casey Benedict, her boss Miranda and Hessa comprise the investigative journalism team.

When the Fashion Team discover flimsy pieces of embroidered silk, loosely attached to a variety of garments in a store, they are all shocked to read messages suggesting that Rohingya refugees were taken to baby factories and that the babies were for English women.

Casey had been to the camps in Bangladesh before and had contacts there; Hessa's mother was born near the Indian border and one of the largest garment producers was in Chittagong.
The reader follows Casey and her team on the trail of who was coordinating this vile trade. Someone in the High Commission must be getting the babies passports.

From respectable British women, desperate for a child, to a Harley Street doctor; trips to Washington DC, to the refugee camps and the hunt for missing girls. This is a complex, edge-of-your-seat thriller; so well researched.

Thoroughly recommended..

We first met investigative journalist Casey Benedict in Holly Watt's impressive debut To The Lions. I was very much looking forward to The Dead Line to see whether Watt could build a series on this premise and I am delighted to say she can! The writer's background in journalism gives her a terrific insight and awareness of contemporary issues. Here the central theme is surrogacy and the matter of childless couples being able to acquire babies from penniless and homeless women in disadvantaged parts of the world. The story is fast-paced and beautifully written, a real triumph!

The dead line by Holly watt.
A Bangladeshi camp. A British ambassador. A Harley Street doctor. Are they connected?
A very good read. Good story. Some good characters. 4*.

Once I had been absorbed by this book I could not put it down - it was fast paced, tense and compulsive reading. Casey Benedict - investigative journalist - sets off to uncover the existence of illegal baby factories following the discovery of a message in some fashion store clothes. her investigation takes her from Harley Street to Washington, Greece and Nice to Bangladesh - from the stateless poor to the upstanding rich political and privileged classes. She is helped by her investigative team colleagues and Ed, ex-military. Each have their demons and each question the morality of what they are doing and who is exploiting whom.

A riveting very realistic read.

Perhaps one of the main reasons that Holly Watts’ thrillers stand out in bookshelves crowded with tales of derring-do is that her main protagonist, Casey is a woman with no special powers other than a grim determination to expose corruption and shine a journalistic light on the suffering of the most vulnerable.
As an investigative journalist herself, Watt is well placed to bring authenticity to the scenes of bargaining, banter and bravado at The Post where Casey works. In ‘The Dead Line’ her focus is also on the sadly plausible storyline of the trafficking of babies ‘grown’ from Western IVF implants by captured Rohingya teenagers in Bangladesh. Casey and two more female journalists, Miranda and Hessa, supported by Ed, ex-military and Casey’s sidekick in Watts’ first novel, fly into Bangladesh to rescue the girls and expose this crime. If it all sounds a bit gung-ho, well it is! However, Watts’ plotting ensures that the reader understands the many layers of deception and corruption that must be built to ensure that this profitable business can exist in the first place. It’s interesting to see how the spider’s web is spun.
Whilst there are moment in this thriller when the reader could quite justifiably cast aside the story as way too far-fetched – notably the chase on the wrecked ship and the villain’s prolonged chase of Holly as the story moves to its conclusion – this would be to ignore the many strengths of the narrative. Watt is clearly interested in exploring the maternal bond: there are many examples of the sacrifices mothers are prepared to make, as well as the acknowledgement that not every woman is keen to swap her liberty for maternity. There is also a focus on the clothing industry and the massive void between the fantasy of the shimmering catwalk and the sweatshops from which most of the world’s clothing originates. If you like food for thought in as good a measure as the thrills and spills of the usual page-turner, then you’ll enjoy ‘The Dead Line’.
My thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Raven Books for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book pre-publication. The story is different from my usual reading type and I did get to the end but all the way through I felt that there was just something very slightly off. I stuck with it but I felt that the main thrust of the book, bringing a baby to its parents, dwindled to insignificance towards the end. Unusual but not for me.

A super fast paced thriller full of mystery, intrigue and conspiracies. A very gripping and intelligent read. Sometimes hard to read due to the dark subject matter but very well written xx