Nine Elms by Robert Bryndza
Published by Sphere
January 2020
Kate Marshall was a promising young police detective when she caught the notorious Nine Elms serial killer. But her greatest victory suddenly became a nightmare.
Fifteen years after those catastrophic, career-ending events, a copycat killer has taken up the Nine Elms mantle, continuing the ghastly work of his idol.
Enlisting her brilliant research assistant, Tristan Harper, Kate draws on her prodigious and long-neglected skills as an investigator to catch a new monster. But there's much more than her reputation on the line: Kate was the original killer's intended fifth victim . . . and his successor means to finish the job.
Robert Bryndza's latest novel is a page-turner from start to finish. We go back to the moment that DCI Kate Marshall realises who the Nine Elms serial killer is and the book progresses from thereon in. Kate will always be intrinsically linked to the man who planned to make her his fifth victim. Whilst he is safely locked up though, it appears that a fan has plans to bring the serial killer back to notoriety by carrying out a series of killings in a copycat fashion and the police have no idea who he is or whom his next victim could be. Kate is asked to look into the disappearance of one of the four victims of the Nine Elms killer by her parents in the hope that as a former detective she might be able to find her body and give them some sort of closure. With her research assistant Tristan they set themselves up as private investigators and using Kate's inside knowledge of the investigation start to question previous witnesses and discover threads that had previously been left unnoticed.
However whilst this is going on, more young girls are being killed and the copycat killer is on his way to matching the same number of bodies as that of his idol; Kate and Tristan are running out of time because little known to her, her nemesis has plans for her that she thought were over and done with.There are some moments here where I think as a reader you have to suspend disbelief and go with the fact that this is indeed fiction but putting that to one side, this is a gripping, fast-paced narrative with lots of twists and turns throughout. There are some fantastically gory moments and the characters are very well developed and believable. I'm certainly looking forward to reading the next in the series.
Happy Reading
Miss Chapters x
