Gone in the Night – Mary-Jane Riley #BlogTour #BookReview

Crime Fiction – Series
5*s

Blurb

Some secrets are deadly…

When the victim of a car crash begs journalist Alex Devlin for help before disappearing without trace, Alex finds herself caught up in a mystery that won’t let her go.

Determined to find the missing man, she is soon investigating a conspiracy that threatens some of the most vulnerable members of society.

But will Alex be prepared to put her own life on the line to help those who can’t help themselves?

My Review

This is the fourth book in the Alex Devlin series, and let me tell you Alex Devlin is a character you would want on your side should you really want the truth. A little unusually for a crime fiction series, Alex is a journalist and someone who has investigated the painful truth about the deaths of her niece and nephew.  This fact means the reader can be sure that nobody nor anything will stop her pursuing the leads to find the truth…

This is just as well because when Alex is given a proposal for a story she believes it is going to be relatively straightforward, oh Alex, how wrong can you be? Cora’s brother Rick has gone missing and she believes the fact that he slept rough will result in a lack of interest by the police. Alex was already casting her net in search of a story to write for the local East Anglian paper, and when she finds out that more of the homeless appear to have disappeared she follows the trail.

This is a bang-on contemporary story which avoids the pitfalls that I find some author’s fall into . This storyline doesn’t feel forced, I didn’t ever feel that the issue came first and then repeatedly shouted from the rooftops. Nevertheless the book necessarily shines a light on those members of society that are often invisible because we do not wish to see them. Fortunately Mary-Jane Riley does what all good authors do, she made me want to find out the truth alongside Alex (and others who she persuades to assist her) so that I became invested in the storyline too.

One of the reasons why I fell in love with this series, is the characters; Alex Devlin has the qualities I admire but this is an author who is able to create both obvious baddies and villains of the more subtle variety too. Boney in this book was one of the obvious variety but believably so – I know we are always told that criminals don’t have their trade stamped across their forehead but that doesn’t mean that there are those out there that most of us would instinctively give a wide berth to! This creation of a wide range of characters right across the spectrum and ensuring a large percentage have depth means that the whole book is given a backdrop of realism to play out the at times most gripping of scenes.

If you haven’t read any of the Alex Devlin series, I do urge you to start at the beginning because although each one will read most satisfactorily as a standalone, I know you will want more and all good bibliophile’s know that you really should read a series in order if you are going to read them all!

Previous Books in the Alex Devlin Crime Fiction Series

The Bad Things
After She Fell
Dark Waters

I want to finish by stating just how delighted I was to be asked to take part in this blog tour; a huge thank you Mary-Jane for ensuring I was included despite my absence from the blogosphere and of course to Dampebbles for putting me at the end of the tour as requested so that I could fit in a wedding and read the book and remember how to write a review…

First Published UK: 3 May 2019
Publisher: Killer Reads
No of Pages: 330
Genre: Crime Fiction – Series
Amazon UK
Amazon US