Detective Mary Hume has scarcely got off the plane after her holiday before she is swept off to a crime scene. It doesn't make much sense until a mobile is handed in to Lost Property adding detail to the sickening scene. A video shows a woman being brutally murdered. In her hand is a card saying 'Deadtown' The victim is Melissa Clarke, famous blogger of true crimes that took place in London. Has she discovered something that brought her to this. Mary calls on Raine, ex-police officer now PI. She was married to Mary's daughter & after her death their relationship has been awkward. When another body is found it looks like someone is plating an elaborate mind game with them.

I haven't read the previous books in this series, but it didn't stop my enjoyment of the story. Raine is an amazing character & I am already looking forward to meeting her again & Hume is the perfect compliment to her. (I do wish the author would call her 'Mary!!') The story kept me guessing & my brain nipping from all the hi-tech stuff! It was an enjoyable read & thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

I enjoyed this book. I did not realize it was the third book in a series when I requested the arc from NetGalley. That being said, I was still able to follow along and enjoy the story, but I do feel like I missed out on quite a bit of the main characters backstory.

The uniqueness of this book was really enjoyable. Hume is called to a crime scene where there is no body and no blood, but yet they have a video of a gruesome murder occurring in that exact spot. They discover the victim is Melissa, a true crime podcaster. They then go on to investigate if a case she was researching was the reason for her murder or is it all just a big hoax?

I recommend this book if you are looking for a true crime investigation type book. It was fast paced and always something new popping up. It really keeps you intrigued. I give this book 3.5 stars.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me an arc copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book, Raine is such a great character, a mixture of emotions, and naturally sarcastic. Her friends are interesting and supportive.
The plot is really fresh and I enjoyed the AI and geoplotting elements.
It's nice to read about Raine and Hume's relationship and the acknowledgement of their feelings for each other. I loved Echo and Bitz.
Thank you for introducing me to this author. Recommended.

DI Mary Hume returns from her holiday and is rushed to a crime scene to meet DS Etera Echo. There’s been a murder. At least there’s one they’ve seen in a sickening video clip on a burner phone found in an abandoned bloodstained handbag. But in the small unoccupied house, there’s no body, no blood and a huge amount of leaves which don’t belong there. The woman in the film is Melissa Clarke, a historical true crime blogger and the name of her blog, Deadtown, is scrawled on a piece of card on her lap. Is what they’ve seen real or an elaborate hoax? IF Melissa really is dead, did she unearth something in her research to endanger her life? Meanwhile ex-officer turned PI Raine gets told of a sighting of Frankie Ridgeway, the trafficker involved in the disappearance of Heather Salim, a woman she was charged to find. The man who gave Raine the scar on her arm before vanishing. She learns he’s up to his old tricks in Hastings now and hopes that locating him will lead her to Heather but what else will that bring to her door? With a second murder, soon Raine and Mary, who is also the mother of Raine’s late wife Clara, find themselves teaming up. With Mary working within the confines of the law together with Raine’s much broader and unorthodox methods and contacts, can they reach the truth?
Chapter one made me instantly love Raine. The second chapter had me hooked completely. I soon grew to like Mary and Echo who had a great working relationship with some lovely humour, and Raine’s assorted set of associates like Brin and Jasper were very likable characters. This is a nice and refreshing take on a detective combination. With a dark and twisty plot, the well written story flowed very easily and kept me engrossed right the way through. Although it’s book three, it works fine on its own. I’m off to catch up on the first two books now.

This was an interesting tale but as I hadn't read the former books in the series I found myself a little lost as there were definitely parts that were related to those previous stories. I didn't realize this was a series when I grabbed this one so rounding my 2 stars up to 3 as I think this might have been better for me if I'd have read the others.

This is a read I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. I've not read the previous book and don't feel as if I've missed anything and so would say this book can be read on its own. I really like the two main characters, Hume and Raine, their history and relationship, both personal and work. Echo is fast becoming one of my favourite characters in this series. Hume investigates a murder where artificial intelligence plays a part - I found Deadtown to be a very good read that drew me in right away and held my attention and interest all the way through. The authors writing is engaging and the plot is quite unique, certainly well thought out and in years to come will probably be all to believeable. I liked that an ongoing thread from the first book had closure. I am really enjoying this series and hope there is another book to look forward to.

4 stars

Firstly, thank you to NetGalley and Joffe Booksfor allowing me an ARC copy to read and review.

Deadtown - Stephen Williams

This book is a super easy read, but didn’t quite hit the wow factor for me - a very easy 3*.

The pace and writing in this book was spot on, credit to the author immediately, but it did unfortunately lack something I can’t quite put my finger on. This doesn’t mean it isn’t for everyone however! Some people might really really love this. It just seemed to try too hard and didn’t quite deliver

I didn't really enjoy this one. Didn't draw me in at all. I skim read it. Thank you for the opportunity to review

Quite a gripping tale by a new author to me. Will certainly make a note of the name. Not unputdownable, but well worth a read.

I found the storyline of this London based thriller intestesting but ultimately I found it a bit disappointing. Although it is mostly fast paced with plenty of action, there are times when the action slows right down, mostly due to some wordy explanations, and I found myself skipping a few pages.

I didn't realise this was book 3 in a series when I started reading and although it didn't spoil the story I did occasionally feel I was missing something.

I'm not sure I would read more by this author.

DI Mary Hume watches in horror as a woman has her throat coat in the video on a burner phone handed in to lost property the other day. Raine, a former police officer is still recovering from the murder of her wife, Mary's daughter, but pursues various leads as a Private Investigator. The two women come together again to investigate the video, they find the place in which it was filmed, no body, minimal forensics, blank wall. Another gruesome murder, again no forensics. Plenty of deceit, mis-direction and an awful lot about social media and AI games, horrifying to think that these may well be out there. Bring in people smuggling as a partial red herring and continuing previous stories. Tidy ending of the main murders, if somewhat unexpected .Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

I have very mixed feelings on this book. I have categorized my thoughts into the three main issues.

The first being that I did not realize that this was the third in a series. And while that didn't hinder me from understanding this one, I do feel like I missed out on a lot of the complexities that make the characters of Hume and Raine the way they are. It is obvious that there was something deeper going on there than just former mother and daughter-in-law that I felt like I was missing out on. However, I think Raine's approach to grief was well written and it made it easy to emphasize with some of the more reckless choices she made.

The second was that for all of the action in this book, things seemed to drag on throughout most of it. I'm not sure if this is because there seemed to be so much going on with all of the different characters exploring different things (some things pertaining to Melissa's case, others not), that it just became to muddled or what, but there were times I could easily put this novel down to go to other things.

The final issue I had with this story is entirely a personal one of my own. I feel like this book was trying too hard. At one point an officer tries to help Hume out of the car as they said that the ground was very slippery (mind you she is above said officer in rank). Not only does Hume take exception to being called ma'am, but she also seems almost insulted that the officer offered his hand to help her and even questions if he did that to every officer. Personal pet peeve I know, but people who genuinely act like this irritate me. The officer was trying to be nice to a superior officer, there was no reason to react the way she did. A simple no thank you, would have sufficed, along with her preference of being called guv instead.

I was also annoyed by the fact that both Raine and Hume somehow manage to disarm their opponents by always breaking their wrists (in Hume's case it was with a kick). It was like the author couldn't think of another way to disarm the bad guys than that.

Now those things aside, I thought that the idea of this story was one of the most unique ones that I have seen in a long time. The idea of using artificial intelligence in order to "murder people", as part of a game was intriguing. And honestly, I would not be surprised if a game like this didn't pop up in the future (although hopefully without the horrific truths that this one included). And as I said previously, the characters were all complex and individual which made them stand out against each other, while still working well as a team.

All that being said, I do believe that this book will be well received by fans of the series, and I enjoyed it enough that I will be going back to book one to give this author another chance.

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

This book was gripping and hard to put down. It didn't feel like everything else you see out there, it felt very fresh. I really enjoyed this book!

I absolutely loved reading this book. It is the 3rd book in the series and I haven't read the other 2 unfortunately, but I would like to rectify that soon hopefully. I totally loved the main characters, in particular Raine but I thought the whole team was great and the book kept me guessing and was really clever writing I thought. If you are late to the party as I was you will still be able to enjoy the read as well as getting to know the main characters, and the story will captivate you if you enjoy a good thriller. you've found one.

Dead Town by Stephen Williams was a real page turner for me. At first you think there are two different crimes going on but soon realize the two become one. Lots of unconventional characters and modern technology make this book intriguing and fast paced.
Really enjoyed the plot and the writing style.

4* Really enjoyed this intro to Hume and Raine.

This tale, it seems, is the 3rd in a series but I had no trouble reading it as a standalone. There's enough that's hinted at to clue you in about the leads and their relationship - MIL and DIL - and what's happened to make them love each other but have a prickly relationship with each other.

For those of us of a certain age, who've not grown up with the tech that features heavily in this book, at time things got confusing. There were small Eureka! moments in Hume's brain as she clocked what was going on via Echo's (her DC) explanations. Thank goodness!

The storyline has some gruesome scenes to it, and a pretty evil character that's not revealed until just before the end, and on top there's a reveal I hadn't seen coming, though in hindsight I should have - blame my age, the baffling jargon and a bit TMI. Wood for trees. There's a lot of detail, the tale is quite slow at times and Raine has an unorthodox MO, and there's not an ending with everything nicely dotted and crossed, which was a tad irritating. It's quite addictive, though, and I'm checking out the others. I'm not sure if I maybe missed a little something because of not reading the previous books in the series, as a lot of history was alluded to, but it certainly didn't spoil the book.

ARC courtesy of Joffe Books and NetGalley for my reading pleasure.

This was a disappointing book for me. It had ingredients I like – quirky characters in a modern setting with twists but it didn't grip me. There were two occasions when the police got a breakthrough because of something unusual they had recently experienced and this felt too contrived.

I'm sure the author has his fans but, even though it's an easy read, it's not for me.

Starts with a bang and has the added quirky feel that many police procedural novels are lacking.
Solid plot with very likable characters.

I wasn’t aware that this book was from a series and I feel like I missed quite a bit.

Ultimately though, this is a good story, not too predictable and it has all the thrills in the right places.

If you love crime thrillers, you'll love this one. It had an interesting plot and Raine is a great character with a heart of gold. The twist at the end will leave you shocked!