Thank you to Rachel from Rachel's Random Resources for inviting me toparticipate in the blog tour for Retribution, the second novel in Christina O'Reilly's DS Baldrick series of police procedurals.

Retribution

A young woman has been murdered on Ripton Beach.
    DSS ‘Archie’ Baldrick and DC Ben Travers eventually identify the body as that of Lucy Martin, who has been renting a bach in the area. Her husband, Oliver, seems to know very little about his wife or her background.
     What was Lucy hiding? Why has she no family or friends?
     As the number of suspects mounts up, Archie begins to conclude that the real answer lies in Lucy’s dark and mysterious past, and that the murderer may be just a little too close for comfort …
 
Purchase Links
UK / US

My thoughts:

This is my second book by Christina O'Reilly and I must say I'm a fan of this author. Into the Void, published in December 2020 introduced us to DSS Archie Baldrick and DC Ben Travis. I loved Christina O'Reilly's descriptions of Archie's chaotic family life, his easygoing wife Jenna and his teenage daughters Alicia and Summer. If you like a well-written whodunnit with likeable main charachers and subtle humour, I'd recommend you read both Book 1 Into the Void and Book 2 Retribution.

A body of a young woman is found on the beach. The identity of the victim is quickly established when Oliver Martin calls the police to inform that his wife Lucy lived in a rented bach near the beach. Lucy left her teaching job to write a novel and needed some peace and quiet to reflect and complete her work. Lucy doesn't appear to have any other family apart from her husband whoclaimsto have been in Sydney at the time. Moreover, there is something about the murder that makes the police suspect the perpetrator was local or at least somebody who knows the beach area very well.

What follows is solid police work. Alibis are provided and thoroughly checked, telephone call registers are analysed, anyone who might have had any links to the case is paid a visit and interviewed, and suspects, likely and unlikely are identified. There are twists and turns as more evidence comes to light and shifts the investigators' perspective. The plot is solid and although you may have an inkling of what the title of the book refers to, it isn't easy to guess the identity of the murderer and the motive.

As it was the case with the first book, the parts I liked the most were the ones dealing with Archie's family. Let's say being a father isn't all joy and pride, it also involves plenty of worry and racking your brains on how to pass on your life knowledge and lifehacks, while allowing your independent teenagers make  their own life decisions and possibly mistakes. As long as they do know you are and always will be there for them.

This short book was genuinely entertaining and time spent in the company of Archie and his team flew fast. I loved the setting (New Zealand), the characters, both main and secondary, drawn with memorable details, the intrigue and the fast pace. I hope Christina O'Reilly is going to continue with the series and can't wait to meet Archie and his team again.
Wholeheartedly recommended.

Thank you to Rachel and the author for the review copy gifted with no expectation of a favourable review. All opinions are my own and were not influenced in any way.

Author Bio

Christina is a writer and professional proofreader living in the Waikato region of New Zealand. Four of her short stories have been published, one in a magazine and the others in anthologies produced by Page and Blackmore, Rangitawa Publishing and most recently in Fresh Ink: Voices from Aotearoa, produced by Cloud Ink Press.
As well as being a finalist in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards, Christina’s first crime novel Into the Void was longlisted for the 2019 Michael Gifkins Memorial Prize for an unpublished novel.
 
Social Media Links – https://www.facebook.com/Christina-OReilly-Author-102419694721372/

Thankyou for reading the post! Have a wonderful Sunday!

Thank to Rachel from Rachel's Random Resources for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for this exciting thriller.

Synopsis:

Into the Void

How easy is it for a man to simply disappear?

When rural banker Richard Harper is reported missing, DSS John (Archie) Baldrick and DC Ben Travers are drawn into the tangled details of the man’s life. Would Harper really have chosen to leave his seriously ill wife, and abandon his pregnant girlfriend? Or is there a real threat behind the abusive emails he’d been receiving from desperate clients in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis?

On the home front, Archie’s marriage is rocky and his two teenage daughters are giving him all sorts of trouble. The frail but beautiful Helena Harper and her magnificent house offer an oasis of calm as Archie struggles to discover who is responsible for her husband’s disappearance. Has he really been abducted, tortured or killed? Or is Richard Harper himself behind everything that has happened?

Archie and Travers ultimately face a race against time as the case descends into a bewildering morass of obsession, violence and murder.

Longlisted for the 2019 Michael Gifkins Memorial Prize for an Unpublished Novel
Finalist in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards for Best First Novel

Purchase Links
US  /  UK
readers can email Christina via her website www.christinaoreilly.com or her Facebook page Christina O’Reilly – Author for a paperback copy.

My thoughts:

Some thrillers start with a bang and get more and more frenetic. Others begin quetly and keep getting better and better with every page. Christina O'Reilly's Into the Void is one of them.

The mystery of a forty-two year old married banker who left his home to go on a business trip to Aukland and vanished into thin air should have been easy to solve. Richard left a wife undergoing chemotherapy treatments (what kind of man would do that) and a pregnant mistress (apparently he was delighted with the news)- perhaps, the stress of leading the double life had got to him and he simply ran away from his troubles? DSS Archie Baldrick and his partner Ben Travers suspect there is more to the case. When Lisa Carpenter, Richard's pregnant girlfriend, is brutally attacked and later murdered, Archie feels guilty for not having taken enough precautions to protect her. He is not a man to give up easily, although the lack of progress is frustrating and it isn't easy to admit it to increasingly more fragile Mrs Harper.

What makes this police procedural stand out is the second storyline: Archie's messy, chaotic family - his super easy-going wife Jenna and his teenage daughters Summer and Alicia. Anybody who's trying to raise a teenager and deal with their growing desire for independence will recognise the familiar parental scenes. All characters, main and secondary (even Mrs Harper's cleaner) are well-written and I can only hope that Into the Void is the beginning of a new series and we'll get to meet them again.

Although the book is quite short, the plot is well-developed and all the loose ends were tied in in the end. Did I guess the criminal mastermind behind the events- yes, I did, but I was also thoroughly entertained and happy to lose myself in this gripping whodunnit. The Devil is always in details, and Christina O'Reilly knows how to paint a picture with a few well-chosen words.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this book. Don't miss it, it's a good one.

Thank you to Rachel and the author for the review copy gifted with no expectation of a favourable review. All opinions are my own and were not influenced in any way.

Author Bio 

Christina is an author and proofreader living in the Waikato region of New Zealand. Several of her short stories have been published in anthologies, most recently in Fresh Ink: A Collection of Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand 2019. Into the Void is her first crime novel and was longlisted for the Michael Gifkins Memorial Prize in 2019. It is also a finalist in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards for Best First Novel.

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