When Kate Marshall finds the body of a young man floating in the Shadow Sands reservoir, the authorities label it a tragic accident.

But the details don’t add up: why was he there in the middle of the night? If he was such a strong swimmer, how did he drown? As Kate and her assistant Tristan Harper follow the evidence, they make a far darker discovery . . .

This is only the latest victim in a series of bloody murders dating back decades. A mythic serial killer is said to hide in the rolling fog, abducting his victims like a phantom. And when another woman is taken, Kate and Tristan have a matter of days to save her from meeting the same fate.

This was 100% my most anticipated read of 2021. I had to wait till Christmas to get a hold of it. I am already a big fan of Bryndza’s work and thoroughly enjoyed reading Nine Elms in 2020, which made it onto my Top Ten of that year.

I talk a lot about the ‘element of surprise’ or the ‘climatic ending/reveal’ and how important it is for me to find a book that makes it difficult to predict what is going to happen. With each crime/thriller book I’ve read over the years, it becomes more difficult for me to find a ‘golden book’ that achieves this. Well…I certainly found it with this book. Having thoroughly enjoyed the grit and honestly of Nine Elms, I headed into this book with the excitement of seeing Kate Marshall latch onto another crime.

Kate and her assistant Tristan make such a dynamic duo who feed off each other throughout the book. There is always the knowledge that they are genuine with each other and their working relationship/friendship is both believable and strong.

This book involves a powerful and rich family and I was mindful enough to remind myself how tight the line of plots are with that particular subject and yet, Bryndza managed to bring both areas together cohesively to make for a compelling story and allow for character development.

I found Kate to be more curious in this book. In an odd way, I felt like she was an onion and I was peeling back more layers of her skin. It is some how rewarding to see her struggle in life because it makes her character very real and believable. There are many aspects to Kate’s character that can be ‘similar’ to the reader and having that connection makes you form a deeper connection with the book as well as reading with a more open mind to swallow up all the clues with.

The introduction of many new characters was a little daunting at first and I had no idea how it would play out. I admit I was relieved by the journey those characters took because I had visions of clichés happening that would have negatively effected my reading.

The two books in this series have been incredibly promising so far. The neat bow at the end of Shadow Sands sets up a further journey into the unknown with Kate Marshall and the prospect of me reading a third book is incredibly high [100%].

It’s not a displeasure more like a slight irritation but there were some characters who were introduce and presented in a way that made me overlook them and think of them as secondary characters. As I read through the book I found out that this wasn’t the case but it was jarring for a hardly mentioned character to suddenly have so much control over the narrative. It didn’t remove my enjoyment from reading but it did give me pause to stop and wonder why those particular characters were written as they were.

There was also a particular scene in the book that I felt was a little lacklustre and didn’t keep up with the image I had for it. Logically, I understood the reasons for why the scene was presented as it was, but I suppose I was waiting for something more interesting or explosive to happen.

I Give This Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟