Child’s Play by Angela Marsons @bookouture @WriteAngie

Book Description:

Finally we’re playing a game. A game that I have chosen. I give one last push of the roundabout and stand back. ‘You really should have played with me,’ I tell her again although I know she can no longer hear.

Late one summer evening, Detective Kim Stone arrives at Haden Hill Park to the scene of a horrific crime: a woman in her sixties tied to a swing with barbed wire and an X carved into the back of her neck. 

The victim, Belinda Evans, was a retired college Professor of Child Psychology. As Kim and her team search her home, they find an overnight bag packed and begin to unravel a complex relationship between Belinda and her sister Veronica.

Then two more bodies are found bearing the same distinctive markings, and Kim knows she is on the hunt for a ritualistic serial killer. Linking the victims, Kim discovers they were involved in annual tournaments for gifted children and were on their way to the next event. 

With DS Penn immersed in the murder case of a young man, Kim and her team are already stretched and up against one of the most ruthless killer’s they’ve ever encountered. The clues lie in investigating every child who attended the tournaments, dating back decades.

Faced with hundreds of potential leads and a bereaved sister who is refusing to talk, can Kim get inside the mind of a killer and stop another murder before it’s too late?

The addictive new crime thriller from multi-million copy, number one bestseller Angela Marsons explores the dark side of child prodigies and will have you absolutely hooked.

My Thoughts:

Well if awards were to be given out for the opening of a story then Child’s Play would win hands down! You couldn’t get a more thrilling yet gruesome start to a book and the thrills didn’t stop there.

Angela Marsons is a writer who never fails to deliver. With every book and new story, she has the reader gripped with unique and shocking cases. As usual, nothing is ever clear and even the victim’s family members don’t make it an easy ride for Kim and her team making them having to work even harder to solve the case.

The fun and games don’t stop there either as there is a newbie on the team of which I enjoyed Kim’s reaction to them. It was interesting also to see how the force clamps down on the officers working over time and the struggle for them having to go home whilst their minds are very much on the case.

This is such a complex case that had me totally hoodwinked and the author blew me away with the outcome and with who the murderer was. It really makes for some exciting reading.

Child’s Play is a fabulously twisted and dark story that had me tearing through the pages. I couldn’t devour this book quickly enough as I just love this authors books that much, when really I should be savouring them so I don’t have to wait as long for the next one. Don’t know about child’s play but the author certainly knows how to play with the mind of her adult readers. Fantastic read!!!

My thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in anyway.

Child’s Play is available to purchase from Amazon. (Please note that link used is an affiliate link).

Angela Marsons is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of the DI Kim Stone series and her books have sold more than 3 million in 3 years.

She lives in the Black Country with her partner, their cheeky Golden Retriever and a swearing parrot.

She first discovered her love of writing at Junior School when actual lessons came second to watching other people and quietly making up her own stories about them. Her report card invariably read “Angela would do well if she minded her own business as well as she minds other people’s”.

After years of writing relationship based stories (The Forgotten Woman and Dear Mother) Angela turned to Crime, fictionally speaking of course, and developed a character that refused to go away.

She is signed to Bookouture.com for a total of 16 books in the Kim Stone series and her books have been translated into more than 27 languages.

Many of her books, including Blood Lines, Dead Souls, Broken Bones, Fatal Promise and Dead Memories reached the #1 spot on Amazon on pre-orders alone.