View source for Cruel Acts by Jane Casey


{{infobox1
|title=Cruel Acts
|author=Jane Casey
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Crime
|summary=Another cracking story from Casey: it might be genre fiction, but it's exceptionally-well written. Highly recommended.
|rating=5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=368|12h28m
|publisher=Harper Collins
|date=April 2109
|isbn=978-0008149031
|cover=0008149038
|aznuk=0008149038
|aznus=0008149038
}}

They called him 'the white knight' because he picked the women up when they were in difficulties.  But they called him a serial killer too, because he murdered them and everyone heaved a sigh of relief when he went down for life.  Then one of the jurors self-published his story of the trial which explained how he and another juror had looked up Stone's history and found a trail of violence.  After that, he explained, they knew that Stone was guilty.  The juror got two months for contempt of court and Stone was released on bail pending a retrial.

DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent were charged with taking a second look at the case to see that all the ducks were in a row.  There was no suggestion that the original investigation was sub standard, but the defence had had chance to see what the prosecution had up it's sleeve and it was worth seeing if there was anything else which could prove useful - and Maeve Kerrigan excels at finding what others have missed.

The families of Stone's victims are split of whether or not Stone is guilty and whilst it might look as though Derwent and Kerrigan are there to paper over the cracks and make the case look good in the limited time that's available, that's not how Kerrigan works and it's not long before the new investigation is moving in an entirely different way.

Kerrigan is just beginning to get over the loss of the love of her life - Rob - who has apparently moved on the another woman who is expecting his child.  She's had to move out of Rob's flat and she's now renting Derwent's flat, which is enough to fuel more gossip, but Kerrigan's used to that now.

I've been looking forward to ''Cruel Acts'' for a while.  I'd set a couple of days aside to enjoy it and I'd even tempted fate by buying an audio download (which I funded myself) so that I had the best of all worlds.  I could read Jane Casey's exquisite prose and listen to Caroline Lennon reading it.  Was I tempting fate, or could anything be better?

The simple answer was that it couldn't be bettered.  I listened to the book twice: once to find out what happened and the next time to see how Casey did it and it came out as five stars on both listenings.  There's more tension in the relationship between Kerrigan and Derwent - this time with explosive consequences and I can't wait to find out what happens next.  It's a cracking series - one of my favourites at the moment and this one doesn't let the series down in any way.  Highly recommended.

You'll be best starting at the [[Jane Casey's Maeve Kerrigan series in Chronological Order|beginning of the series]] if you want to get the best out of the books, but they all read perfectly well as standalones.

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