DI Jack MacIntosh is called out to the body of a young woman found dead on the South Bank - her hands and feet are bound together, and she’s badly bruised, but what really shocks the investigation team is the fact that her mouth has been sewn shut, and the head of a dead rat is discovered on removing the thread.

A second body is discovered the next day, followed by a third discovered in a derelict brewery. All with the same MO.

At the same time, a local newspaper reporter receives a ransom demand after returning home to find his wife missing. Does this have anything to do with the recently discovered bodies? Well, DI MacIntosh and his team are determined to find out.

Though these murders did make me feel a bit squeamish, the storyline itself was riveting, with lots of twists and turns, aided by excellent use of smoke and mirrors. Recommended.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Joffe Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest unbiased review *netgalley133 s40 comments Louise Wilson3,078 1,661

DI Jack MacIntosh #5

Detective Jack MacIntosh is called out to a body on the South Bank. The victim's hands and feet are bound, her skin badly bruised, her lips cruelly sewn together. Inside the dead woman's mouth was the head of a rat. This is the second body in two days. The next night, a third body is discovered in a derelict brewery. The same bruising, the mouth sewn shut, the rat's head. This time it's a young man - and he's been dead about a week. With no witnesses, and no clues to who the victims are, Jack's investigation is going nowhere.

This story made me feel quite squeamish reading about the rat's heads being sewn into the victim's mouths. The characters are well-developed, the pace is steady, there are plenty of twists in this well-written book. I kept thinking I knew where this story was going, but I was wrong. I could not put this book down.

I would to thank #NetGalley #JoffeBooks and the author #MichelleKidd for my ARC of #ThreeBrokenBodies in exchange for an honest review.13 s2 comments Krystal1,166 32

Full disclosure, I believe that this is a case of the writing style just not working for me. And while I struggled to finish this one for reasons I will go into in a moment, I do firmly believe that other people will enjoy this one much more than I did.

To start with the positives, I found the plot to be interesting. The author definitely knows what they are doing when it comes to weaving together a cohesive story even when it seems none of the elements will cross-over. The characters, for the most part, seemed well thought out (although one or two of them, to me at least, felt they fit into the stereotypical mold of good guy vs bad guy).

Here is where I lost interest.

To begin with every chapter or "location change" was met the same way.
Time: x.xx am/pm (depending)
Date: Day of the week, monthly date
Location: any one of the many locations

To take an example straight from the book it looked this:

Time: 5.15 pm
Date: Saturday 20 August 2014
Location: Metropolitan Police HQ, London

This immediately pulled me out of the story. Especially because that grouping of items immediately meant that there was not only about to be a location change, but a change in character(s) / plot-lines as well. I feel this story would have done better had the chapters been longer and focused on what was happening in that specific location instead of jumping around. For example whilst at the Police HQ, they could have talked about the two cases and how where each team was at in their own investigations. I didn't feel we needed to jump from something happening at the police station, to something happening with one of the many criminals who also featured in this novel.

The second issue I had with this one is also admittedly a pet peeve of mine. You do NOT need to end every damn chapter on a cliffhanger. Now and again to keep things moving I can understand, but this story had it happening at the end of literally every chapter. It was though the author didn't trust their writing to be strong enough on its own to carry the story forward without relying on that tactic. Which really was a shame as I have said before, the author's writing style IS strong.

It's just all these little things that I feel will make it unappealing for readers me, while still attracting a following all its own of other readers.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own. Sophie Sheppard329

Three broken bodies is the 5th book in the DI Jack MacIntosh series, however it could be read as a stand alone thriller (which is how I’ve just read it) and I found it easy enough to follow
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