Believe No One by A D Garrett

Believe No One by A D Garrett
Buy Believe No One by A D Garrett at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Thrillers
Reviewer: Ani Johnson
Summary: Two Brits: a forensic expert and a cop have no option but to work with a top-notch US law enforcement team on a serial murder that has personal connections for one of them. Brutal, suspenseful, gory and brilliantly thought out, Professor Nick Fennimore and Kate Simms back and just as good whether you read the first book or not.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 432	Date: November 2014
Publisher: Corsair
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1472114198
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Scottish forensic science expert Professor Nick Fennimore, and English DCI Kate Simms are both, for various reasons in St Louis, just as Nick planned. Fennimore and Simms have worked together in the UK when Nick's wife was murdered and daughter kidnapped. In fact they were together the night they first went missing having a less than professional dinner. Nick's daughter is still missing but while he follows new leads, he and Kate have other things to work on. St Louis has a serial killer to contend with: the victims are all mothers and their children are taken at the same time. Not so pure coincidence? Nick sees connections so will try to make everyone else see them. Whether his tactics work or not remains to be seen.

Margaret Murphy and Professor Dave Barclay are back as the writing partnership A D Garrett (hereafter the Garretts for short) reprising their fictional, more reluctant partnership of Fennimore and Simms. These two representatives of British law and order may be back but there is a major difference from their first outing.

The big difference from Everyone Lies is that they're abroad. Kate has been seconded to a crack US law and order team comprising of psychological profilers, CSI bods and detectives in St Louis to help track down a serial killer. Not being able to keep away from either Kate or possible links with his murdered wife and missing daughter, Nick subtly manages to manoeuvre himself into a book tour of the same city at the same time. This is clever plotting by the Garretts. There would be no way that Nick could legitimately involve himself with that investigation due to the location and his connection, but if he muscles in on a pretext, the procedural sections of the novel remain true to life and we still have the tensions between Simms and Fennimore.

There are indeed tensions – he still fancies her (although alternative consolation is at hand) while she wants rid of him. Add that to the Brit vs US wrangles within the team and we have some interesting sub-plots. It's interesting to see how the two deal with the transatlantic rifts. Kate tries to prove herself and win their respect while Nick? Well, Nick doesn't care a jot so just bludgeons away with metaphorical blunt instruments in a good-for-readers kind of way. It's not as formulaic as it seems reading this; we're too busy turning pages and holding breath to think about formulae!

The tension is the sort that will definitely appeal to all thriller fans, especially those of. In a Deaveresque way we're told the story from three angles: the investigators', the potential victims' and the killer's. In this way the Garretts treat us to psychological insights from all three. I particularly loved watching the investigators thought processes develop and changed according to the information available and increasing their mental tool box against the anonymous adversary.

Back at the coal face of hurt and cruelty, I won't give anything away but I defy any of you not to mentally shout 'Run!!' at some stage! Indeed we're totally engaged by the gritty action, including a couple of graphic scenes as the murderer does his stuff (again, reminiscent of the Deaver). Having said that, if your stomach is of the weaker disposition, we're given enough warning to be able to skip it so don't let that put you off. At one stage I did actually feel sick but not because of the gore; the nausea was caused by rising fear of what would happen to a nine year old boy. Yes, I was that into it! Also I never thought I'd find myself siding with and cheering on a criminal. (No, not the murderer – wait and see.)

The ending ties off some loose ends while loosening further ends enough for the next book to be a very attractive prospect. Meanwhile, while we wait for that, I'm heading back to Book #1. Although Believe No One works very well as a stand-alone, it's made me want to read the Fennimore/Simms history that I missed. So if those of you who have read it would like to talk among yourselves till Book #3 comes out, I'll join you later!

(Thank you, good people at Corsair, for providing us with a copy for review.)

Further Reading: If you haven't read it already, then please feel free to backtrack to Everyone Lies by A D Garrett|Everyone Lies]] with me. If you're already a fan, we also heartily recommend The Bodies Left Behind by Jeffery Deaver.

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