🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2

The sixth installment of the addictive and immensely enjoyable DI Gaby Darin series, (the second this reader has had a chance to read so far) this story works well as a stand-alone novel.

Based in North Wales, DI Gaby Darin is a petite yet fiercely-driven woman, a leader who brings her all to the job, a proud mentor to her high-functioning major-crime-squad team, and a woman who is burdened, like the rest of us, with inadequate time to share with her family – which has ballooned lately, with the move-in addition of her lover, pathologist Dr Rusty Mulholland, and his twelve-year-old son, Conor.

(Readers Note: Gaby is also burdened by a deeply unsympathetic and emotionally-abusive boss DCI Sherlock. Would that she could find the strength to stand up to him!)

With the frustratingly-clueless disappearance of three seventeen-year-old girls across an eighteen-month span, Gaby and her team are stymied – searching for links and battling the clock, as desperation mounts and the search for bodies intensifies.

A tensely-plotted, cleverly-detailed chase ensues, as a killer and a heinous plan begin to slowly emerge, the author revealing just enough, (but no more) to tantalize, terrify, and challenge the now-captive reader.

Rich with wonderfully-drawn characters, the author deftly blends procedural crime-drama with the real-life drama of the protagonists, giving the reader glimpses (and in Gaby’s case, a much more intimate gape) into their lives, loves, fears and desires (much of which emotion is only partially self-sorted).

Unputdownable in its pacing, this is a wonderful read, and without giving the plot away(no spoilers here), a particularly saddening one for several reasons.

Highly recommended for fans of UK crime, and really, any reader of first-rate character-based fiction, I read this one almost straight though a rainy afternoon and evening.

My stop today on the @HQStories #blogtour for #ColdGrave by @scribblerjb