The Scorned

My thoughts about Alex Khan’s The Scorned, writer Alex Khan delivers an engrossing police procedural thriller that excels technically and sets the stage for an epic ending that will leave you breathless. Alex Khan’s brilliant follow up to the fantastic Until Dead, The Scorned is a confident, competent, and gripping thriller that sucks you into its drama less than five minutes into the book and keeps you invested till the end. Writer Alex Khan skillfully builds a real world around this murder mystery that moves at a racy pace with spurts of tension and thrill. Like any good thriller, Alex Khan’s The Scorned never reveals all its cards at once. The layers come off one by one and each time you think you have got it all figured out, another twist hits you out of the blue. Alex Khan’s The Scorned story begins with When a young Asian woman is found brutally murdered in her North London home, DS Mumtaz ‘Moomy’ Ali begins the investigation, but is blindsided by a case with no obvious motive. When a second female victim is found, with no obvious links to Sidra apart from also having her throat slit, it seems Moomy is up against every detective’s nightmare… a serial killer bringing terror to the streets of London.
As the case deepens, Moomy and her detective partner Sarah Heaton uncover a sinister underground group brought together by their hatred of women. But their roots run deep, and they count some very powerful people in their number. To stop the bloodshed, Moomy must delve into the darkest corners of the internet, a place where hatred festers, unchecked but she needs to be fast, because the killer has their sights set on her. Overall Alex Khan’s The Scorned delivers what it promises, a bang on well written storyline, characters, fast paced, gripping, thrilling and edge of the seat. Alex Khan’s The Scorned is phenomenal. I would like to say a big thank you to writer Alex Khan, and publishers Hera Books for kindly letting me read and review this brilliant book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💥💥💥💥💥

The 2nd book in this great series and we see how the rwo leads in the story DS Mumtaz(moomy) Ali and DI Sarah Heaton are growing in character both strong and independent women dealing with a case that shows how there is a lot of hate and exploration on the Internet and how if affects people from all walks of life.
Moomy's past is slightly covered and I'm looking forward to seeing how this will unfold as the series continues.
Hard hitting and fast paced with a strong storyline throughout.
RECOMMENDED
Throughout Netgalley and Hera Books for the ARC.

Sooo I did like this as a police procedural procedural, the characters were well written and the plot was complex and kept moving forward.... however...... I liked that the author has written from an Asian perspective and that we've got a diverse ethnic range of characters.... but..... it just tries too hard! There area lot of Asian words that I didn't know what they meant like nikah nama,, ‘Sabr, desi, kangan, Ayat ul Kursi, Holi, chakka. and bhoots. It also plays really badly to stereotypes of the stern Indian dad whos all about discapline and omit implies hes this horroble person really heavily and then it turns out hes the sweetest man which is fine but i just didnt really see why playing into stereotypes ever seemed a good idea?! Theres also the fact that because the victim was brown the the police automatically assign a brown officer to the case, and that said officer can't be objective in the case because of this. And not because she wants to make sure the job is done properly and that minorities gets the same justice and level of effort that while victims would..... no...... all she does is project her own issues onto the victim because they're both brown and that's just not how we work! We don't see all other brown people as an extention of ourself and so just obsess about our own issues until the white officer had to tell the main character to get a grip and do her job?! That's a terrible portrayal of a professional POC!!! And the other thing that immediately jumped out at me was the fact that the victim is always refered to as Asian or Indian even though she'd 3rd generation English? I'm just 1st gen and I generally refer to myself as Scottish and use my nationality rather than my ethnicity. Or the fact that the Asian office "PC Abdul" felt the need to try and speak to the characters in Punjabi until being told that they were born in England and Eniglish was their 1st language so he didn't need to try and speak to them in any other language.... whoch is very valid and no doubt a common minor aggression in assuming g we don't speak English but if you are also Asian and are speaking to someone born in the UK who has an English accent and no trace of Indian accent then it just seems like insanity that you'd assume they'd understand a different language better?! English is my only language and as much as my colour my confuse people, I can assure you the Scottish accent doesn't leave much room for question. So yeah..... it all just seemed all over the place in trying to delve into the racist issue and show the prejudice but some came off stupid, some tried too hard, some were just offensive and some were just stupid and illogical. Good effort but I do think it'll put a lot of readers off

An irresistible slice of escapism and a joy to read. Compelling, absorbing and highly entertaining. Fast-moving and fun! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️