Firewatching

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He’s smart and very intuitive and even though he’s not the lead on the case you know damn well he’s going to be the one to solve it. After almost leaving it too late, Tyler confesses his conflict of interest to Doggett, yet Doggett dismisses his concern and keeps him on the case. When growing up Oscar is looked after by two elderly ladies, Edna and Lily who are very interesting characters. Lots of shady and oddly sinister villagers make up an intriguing bunch of suspects and the plot is clever, sharp and dramatic.

In a tense narrative, another body is discovered and running amok in the background is a pyromaniac, the Fire Watcher, with a blog about historical fires, who knows precisely what happened all those years ago. The writing is excellent, the plot is tight and well crafted, the characters are terrific, and the double mystery (two murders and an arson case that may or may not be related) kept me guessing until the end (as usual, I didn’t see the end coming). The exposition about the two spinster aunts provided additional development but I found these parts dragged the story down the most.Detested by many of his fellow officers, Adams continues working the case, even when he is temporarily suspended for getting too close to the prime suspect. Tales of crazed arsonists are generally irresistible, and there haven’t been a lot of them published lately. The plot was quite complicated and I must confess that I didn't guess who the murderer was almost until the very end. There are plenty of triggers including rape, pedophilia, physical and spousal abuse so be careful if you about to read this.

There's a delightful ambiguity about their reliability that must have been a nightmare to work with. Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Jess from Simon and Schuster for my copy of this book. I was delighted to host a panel recently at Hull Noir 2021, where Russ was one of the authors I interviewed. Because we’re seeing most of the story through Tyler’s eyes, we’re also led along by his hopes, assumptions and fears, which in turn distracts the reader from the fairly obvious clues.In this book, which is set in Sheffield, England, sees Adam Tyler force his way into an investigation, because he feels it falls in his remit as a cold case officer (though why it has to be him, given he's just a DS is beyond me). This review was written voluntarily and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from G. Told from the perspectives of Adam, Rabbani, Lily and a mysterious, anonymous blogger known only as the Fire Watcher, this story scorches with a tangle of threads that I challenge even the most seasoned of thriller readers to tie together before the incredible, unpredictable ending. There is plenty to get your teeth into in this dark, tense and suspenseful read, with its gripping central character, I just could not put the book down until I finished. His successes in solving cases have made him a lot of enemies, he has to endure sly pointed comments about his father, and homophobia in the form of 'banter' and otherwise.

This wasn't a bad debut, and I'll look for the next book in the series see how the character of Adam Tyler is further developed. We also have PC Mina Rabbani with her fiery temper, broad South Yorkshire accent, her cleverness and initiative. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Firewatching besides being Russ Thomas’ debut thriller it is also the introduction to a new crime fighting detective, DS Adam Tyler.Meanwhile, a pyromaniac is burning things in Castledene, and Tyler feels that these fires have some connection to his case – he is just not sure what. I thought he handled everything very well though and I found myself admiring him for his intelligent determination towards the case. I loved the title of this novel- it is very nuanced and multi-layered, although discussing it here would give too many spoilers.