Evening Everyone,

I hope you’re all well. I only posted yesterday so not surprisingly, I really don’t have a lot to say. I went to bed, I slept, I worked and I read. What an exciting life I lead.

Book 📖

Thank you to @AvonBooksUK and Alex Pine for this advanced audio copy of The Killer in the Snow in return for an honest review. The Killer in the Snow is due to be published on 28th October 2021 and you can get a copy here.

Description 🔖

It has been a year since DI James Walker’s last big case and this festive period, he is hoping for a much quieter time.

Of course, criminals don’t think about that. Not too far away, on Christmas Eve, a local farmer comes home to find footsteps in the fresh snow. They lead to his unused basement in the farm house but there are none leading away. Days later, the farmers body is found along with the bodies of his wife and his daughter.

There are no witnesses and very little evidence to help DI Walker and his team crack this case. The only clues that they have to cling to are those from a strikingly similar murder that took place at the very same farm twenty years earlier.

General Thoughts 🤔

This is the second book in the DI James Walker series. I have read both in the space of two days and I really enjoyed them both. I think that this second book is better than the first and I saw improvements in the writing.

The storyline in this book is slightly more complicated than the first, however it is still in keeping with a theme of not being overly complex. I did kind of know what the outcome of the story was going to be quite early on. Well I exaggerate, not all of it. I had guessed the circumstances and it took me just a little while longer to figure out who the culprit was. I’m not the kind of person to feel disappointed at that though. Even though I had cracked the case, I still enjoyed following the investigative team on their journey to do the same.

Characters 👫👬👭

I felt like DI Walker had found his feet a little more in this book. He hadn’t long moved to the village in the first book and there was a little tension within the team. It seemed like he’d built stronger relationships within his team this time around and I liked to see the rapport start to grow.

James’ wife Annie seemed to feature in this second book a little less. She was still there of course, but more of a background character. I’m not sure how I felt about this. I liked that lots more focus was put onto the case and all those involved in it, but I do also like to know more about the characters background in order to give them depth. Maybe there is some middle ground to be struck. One thing I definitely noticed and appreciated was the absence of the word hun!

Writing Style ✍️

I think Alex Pine settled into his writing a bit more in this book which is natural and expected after writing a debut. The language between characters felt a lot more natural and it was good to see some relationships start to build between the characters.

I thought there was a lot more police procedure content in this book which I enjoyed. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like watching a hard hitting BBC drama unfold, but I wasn’t expecting that and I don’t think that I will expect that from future books in this series.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖️

I really enjoyed my last few days with DI James Walker and I’m a little sad that it’s over for a while. I sincerely hope that it is just for a while and that there is more to come from Alex Pine and this series. This would be a perfect December read so if you’re looking for something to get stuck into that’s not going to massively hurt your brain, but will scratch your murder mystery itch, get this on your TBR for winter.

😍😍😍😍😩