Hail my new hero, Tom Callaghan.
As a fan of Tom Rob Smith and especially his novel, The Secret Speech, I thought there would not be another writer to touch him. I was wrong.
With A Killing Winter, Tom Callaghan has created a fascinating, cold and harsh setting, but one in which the central character is a living breathing empathetic detective, one with compassion, one dealing with personal loss, but one who ploughs on through the political difficulties determined to reach the truth, whatever the threat to himself.
With a superb sense of place. Callaghan gets the balance of tension, empathetic characters, and the setting just right.
When Inspector Akyl Borubaev of Bishkek Murder Squad arrives at the brutal murder scene of a young woman, all evidence hints at a sadistic serial killer on the hunt for more prey.
But when the young woman’s father turns out to be a leading government minister, the pressure is on Borubaev to solve the case not only quickly, but also quietly, by any means possible. Until more bodies are found …
Still in mourning after his wife’s recent death, Borubaev descends into Bishkek’s brutal underworld, a place where no-one and nothing is as it seems, where everyone is playing for the highest stakes, and where violence is the only solution.
I couldn’t put The Killing Winter down. Thank heavens there is another on the horizon: A Spring Betrayal.
I can’t wait.
A Killing Winter – Tom Callaghan 5th November 2015, Paperpack £7.99.