Drawn to Murder by JJ Sullivan

Description

The Batterton Police series follows the Major Crime Investigation Team in Batterton, a sizeable town somewhere in England. These are police procedurals that won’t have detectives saying, ‘That’s not how we do things.’ Overworked and often misled, the Batterton police are as humanly fallible as me and you – but like the Mounties they never give up till they get their man (or woman). They work as a team; you won’t find any detectives here who drink too much, go out on investigations of their own without telling anyone what they are up to, or find themselves in conflict with senior officers more interested in fame and position than catching criminals. There are no interview rooms with a one-way mirror as one of the walls because, popular as they are on TV, almost none of England’s police stations has such a thing. Instead, other officers watch what is happening on monitors and listen through loudspeakers. No interview is ever interrupted by someone knocking at the door and saying, “Boss, you need to hear this.” That’s for two reasons: the first is that the only time an interview in an English police station will be interrupted by a knock on the door is if the station is on fire. If someone wants to get a message to one of the interviewers, they text the interviewer’s phone. And the second is that “the boss” will not be in there: interviews under caution are conducted only by specially trained officers who will usually be detective constables but occasionally detective sergeants. Having a detective chief inspector walk into an interview room, slap down a file and say, “Okay, sonny, it’s time you told us the truth” may make great television but it doesn’t happen in practice. And, finally, policeman’s lives continue when they are off duty and this series follows their lives as they develop, book by book. In Drawn to Murder, Book 1 of the series, Rita is an artist, still recovering from an attack by three men. Deborah is a nurse and a killer, as much at ease ending people’s lives as prolonging them. Maybe, if they hadn’t been lovers, it wouldn’t have gone beyond talk. But they are. And it does. The police start finding bodies. And more bodies. Because, once you start killing people, it’s difficult to stop. New names get added to the list. All men, and all sexually interfered with. Why not? That’s what the three men did to Rita. Revenge is sweet. PC Jamie Pearson and Rita were teenagers together once. Jamie wants to find Rita. Which is also the aim of reporter Bernadette Spence. Jamie wants Rita’s soul and Bernadette wants her story. And Deborah wants both of them dead. Review NetGalley Reviewer Nadine: 4 Stars This book had me stumped. Sitting smug and thinking I had it all thought out, the author put me in my place. Finally we have a thriller that will keep you on your toes. I truly enjoyed myself and will be recommending it to anyone I see for the next few months. Review NetGalley Reviewer Leila B: 5 Stars What a fantastic read. So gripping from the start and fast pace. With a few murders and serial killers on the loose, the story kept me hooked until the last page. Definitely an author to keep my eye on. Can’t wait for book 2. Review NetGalley Reviewer Aria H: 4 Stars I really enjoyed reading this book, it was gripping and so unpredictable, I couldn’t work it out and when I thought I had worked it out it shocked me all over again. Such a good story and great characters. I really liked it From the NigelAdamsBookworm blog: This is one of those books that had me hooked from the very start. JJ Sullivan has a great way of writing that makes the story flow. I’d usually put a book down at a convenient point to take a break; the problem with this book is every time it came to one I was desperate to find out what happened next. He makes the characters very believable and there’s nobody with the usual “Cop-Problems” found in most Police thrillers. There are budding relationships, there are frustrations between colleagues, there is the frustration of balancing private lives with their police work. That all makes this very realistic. The crimes that are committed and investigated are compelling reading. Sullivan takes the reader right to the heart of everything, stopping just shy of making the crime scenes tasteless or tacky reading. I can’t wait to see where this series goes, which of the officers in Batterton appear in future books, and what roles they’ll play.