RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
CHILD’S PLAY (D.I. Kim Stone Book #11) by Angela Marsons is another great addition in this British police procedural thriller series. Besides the main crime plotline, Ms. Marsons gives Penn his own side sub-plotline on an old case with his previous team.
Kim is called to the scene of a horrific murder with an elderly woman tied with barbed wire by her wrists to a swing and stabbed through the heart. When Keats discovers an “X” on the back of the woman’s neck during autopsy and another body is discovered laid over a chalked hop-scotch with the same marking on his neck, Kim knows they are looking for a ritualistic killer.
Another body is found, who was the killer’s first victim positioned by a Snakes & Ladder game in his home with the “X” on the back of his neck. All three victims are tied to a yearly gifted children’s competition which is occurring this weekend. Kim, Bryant, Stacy and a temp called Tiff are all on site and hope to catch the killer before there are any more deaths.
At the same time, Penn is off when he is needed to testify on his last case tied to his old unit. The case begins to fall apart and Penn has to rework with case. Something is not right and Penn finds not only himself, but his brother in danger.
Even with this being the eleventh book in this series, I am never bored, always glad to get back to favorite characters and looking for the next book to come. This book’s two plotlines do not intersect and therefore you get two dramatic solutions. The investigations in this series are as interesting as the resolutions because they always are intense and intriguing. All the main characters feel like they could walk off the page and feel like a second family. The secondary characters are always fully fleshed with interesting back stories and motives.
I can once again highly recommend this book and the entire series. It is a definite MUST READ!
***
Author Bio
Angela is the author of the Kim Stone Crime series. She discovered a love of writing at Primary School when a short piece on the rocks and the sea gained her the only merit point she ever got. Angela wrote the stories that burned inside and then stored them safely in a desk drawer. After much urging from her partner she began to enter short story competitions in Writer’s News resulting in a win and three short listed entries.
She used the Amazon KDP program to publish two of her earlier works before concentrating on her true passion – Crime.
Angela is now signed to write a total of 16 Kim Stone books for http://bookouture.com and has secured a print deal with Bonnier Zaffre Publishing.
