Full disclosure, this review is part of a blog tour I’m doing for Rachel’s Random Resources, where I have the privilege of being able to read and review ‘Retriever of Souls’, the first instalment in the D.I. Sterling series. While this is part of an official blog tour, you can expect the same level of quality, honesty and objectivity that I bring to all of my reviews. This isn’t the first time that I’ve being involved in a blog tour with Rachel’s Random Resources, and if you want to read that one then follow this link. I have also reviewed two of the standalone sequels to this book and you can check those out here and here respectively.
Anyway now that I’ve gotten that out of the way let me tell you a little about the author, Lorraine Mace, this isn’t her first book in fact she’s the author of The Writer’s ABC Checklist, Vlad The Inhaler – Hero In The Making and Notes From The Margin. You can find out more about Lorraine by checking out here website, and I hope to get an Interview with her in the next few weeks as well. You can also follow the author on Twitter to keep up to date.
Okay, now a little about the book itself, it’s crime fiction which happens to be my favourite genre, and so I was super excited to get a copy to read, it was published on the 13th December 2018, just a couple of days before my birthday for anyone who’s an ardent fan of this blog and want to note the date down in their diaries. The book was published by Accent Press, and you can follow that link to check out more about them and other books they’ve published.
So now to my thoughts, feelings and opinions on the book, I’ve been accused of being overly positive in my reviews, and I can see where that might be true, but while I aim to be positive that’s never at the expense of honestly of objectivity, I just like to focus on the positives because even a book that has issues still has merit, but in this case I feel completely justified in saying that I love this book.
I’ve been a huge fan of the police procedural for years now, authors such as Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, Jeffery Deaver all managed to write these complex characters that walked that thin blue line, while dealing with their own lives, and we can now add Lorraine Mace to that list of authors who can craft superb stories of suspense and crime. Retriever of Souls, is the first book in a series and it’s truly engaging, I am a notoriously fast reader but even I was amazed with how quickly I absorbed this book, it just hooks you and grabs you tight until your done.
Lorraine was careful to make sure that her main character wasn’t some perfect force for good, he’s complex has demons and actually seems to be influenced by the choices he’s made and the things he needs to do. In fact, you have to seriously question whether Sterling can put aside his problems to deal with the main conflict of the story, and when that happens to be a particularly dangerous killer who is murdering people according to his own views on purity.
Honestly though I don’t want to spoil too much, but Retriever of Souls is a wonderfully crafted novel that doesn’t remind me too much of anything else. It’s filled with all sorts of twists and turns that not only kept me hooked till the last page but also made me excited for the next instalment in the series. So with all of that in mind I think I’ll give this book a 4/5. If you want to grab a copy for yourself then head on over to Amazon. You can also purchase the sequels to this novel on Amazon as well by clicking here, here and here.
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