As much as I love reading, I’m not a massive lover of a series (normally I get bored). MY GOD has Robert Bryndza changed that with his Erika Foster series. The series currently comprises 4 brilliant books. The first, The Girl in the Ice, I read almost a year ago and loved. I instantly bought books 2 and 3 but for unknown reasons they slipped down my TBR. It was only when I saw that my pre-order for book 4 had slipped through the kindle cracks and into my library that I realised I needed to do a mass read!
The Girl In the Ice
“Her eyes are wide open. Her lips parted as if to speak. Her dead body frozen in the ice…She is not the only one.
When a young boy discovers the body of a woman beneath a thick sheet of ice in a South London park, Detective Erika Foster is called in to lead the murder investigation.
The victim, a beautiful young socialite, appeared to have the perfect life. Yet when Erika begins to dig deeper, she starts to connect the dots between the murder and the killings of three prostitutes, all found strangled, hands bound and dumped in water around London.
What dark secrets is the girl in the ice hiding?
As Erika inches closer to uncovering the truth, the killer is closing in on Erika.
The last investigation Erika led went badly wrong… resulting in the death of her husband. With her career hanging by a thread, Erika must now battle her own personal demons as well as a killer more deadly than any she’s faced before. But will she get to him before he strikes again?”
This is one of those books that you can’t help but start and finish in the same day. This book is so full of suspense that you’ll be hooked straight away. The books are focused around the working (and personal) life of Erika Foster and the murder investigations she works on. For me something I’ve enjoyed about the entire series is that it isn’t particularly graphic or gory, but goes into the necessary detail for the story.
A fantastic read – and I can’t believe that Robert is usually a chic-lit writer?!?! Maybe I’ll have to delve into those while I wait for his next instalment of the series…
The Night Stalker
“If the Night Stalker is watching, you’re already dead…
In the dead of a swelteringly hot summer’s night, Detective Erika Foster is called to a murder scene. The victim, a doctor, is found suffocated in bed. His wrists are bound and his eyes bulging through a clear plastic bag tied tight over his head.
A few days later, another victim is found dead, in exactly the same circumstances. As Erika and her team start digging deeper, they discover a calculated serial killer – stalking their victims before choosing the right moment to strike.
The victims are all single men, with very private lives. Why are their pasts shrouded in secrecy? And what links them to the killer?
As a heat wave descends upon London, Erika will do everything to stop the Night Stalker before the body count rises, even if it means risking her job. But the victims might not be the only ones being watched… Erika’s own life could be on the line.”
I had this novel on pre-order and it actually was on my TBR for July last year (woops – and don’t I feel silly for leaving it so long now) – Click Here. This turned out to be an exceptionally well written and thought out book. I loved how later into the novel, chapters are written from the perspective of the killer and how this allows you to enter their thoughts and move with them as they plan their next steps. Definitely had me checking under my bed and in the cupboards at night!
5 stars for sure!
Dark Water
“Beneath the water the body sank rapidly. She would lie still and undisturbed for many years but above her on dry land, the nightmare was just beginning.
When Detective Erika Foster receives a tip-off that key evidence for a major narcotics case was stashed in a disused quarry on the outskirts of London, she orders for it to be searched. From the thick sludge the drugs are recovered, but so is the skeleton of a young child.
The remains are quickly identified as seven-year-old Jessica Collins. The missing girl who made headline news twenty-six years ago.
As Erika tries to piece together new evidence with the old, she must dig deeper and find out more about the fractured Collins family and the original detective, Amanda Baker. A woman plagued by her failure to find Jessica. Erika soon realises this is going to be one of the most complex and demanding cases she has ever taken on.
Is the suspect someone close to home? Someone is keeping secrets. Someone who doesn’t want this case solved. And they’ll do anything to stop Erika from finding the truth.“
I’ve honestly sat and thought about this for a while now, but I think this must be my favourite. Finding the remains of a young child is such a heartbreaking foundation to begin a novel, but this book had it all! Such a dark and suspense filled read with so many secrets.
If only you could give more than 5/5!
Last Breath
“He’s your perfect date. You’re his next victim.
When the tortured body of a young woman is found in a dumpster, her eyes swollen shut and her clothes soaked with blood, Detective Erika Foster is one of the first at the crime scene. The trouble is, this time, it’s not her case.
While she fights to secure her place on the investigation team, Erika can’t help but get involved and quickly finds a link to the unsolved murder of a woman four months earlier. Dumped in a similar location, both women have identical wounds – a fatal incision to their femoral artery.
Stalking his victims online, the killer is preying on young pretty women using a fake identity. How will Erika catch a murderer who doesn’t seem to exist?
Then another girl is abducted while waiting for a date. Erika and her team must get to her before she becomes another dead victim, and, come face to face with a terrifyingly sadistic individual.”
You’d expect by book four in a series things would start to get boring, but NO! With the Erika Foster series, the underlying story of Erika and her life in the police force runs through the books, but with the focus being on a different murder investigation, which keeps things fresh and interesting.
For me this book was felt so current and really brought home the issues with modern day dating and the internet – meeting online and not knowing who you’re truly talking to. Again, loved that chapters are written from the murder’s perspective, bringing both sides of the story.
Couldn’t be less than 5 stars!
Not much left to say, and I’m definitely out of stars for a while, but fingers crossed a fifth is currently being written Robert!
The Midnight Reader xo
“The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire – neither Offred’s nor that of the two men on which her future hangs. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first century America gives full rein to Margaret Atwood’s devastating irony, wit and astute perception.”
In June 2014, Julia White – a beautiful and intelligent young woman – blows up a coffee shop in central London, killing twenty-four people before turning herself in to the police. Apart from publishing a potentially ironic manifesto, she refuses to explain the reasons for her actions…Clare Hardenberg, an investigative journalist, has been commissioned to write a biography of Julia but at the start of the novel she is on her way to prison herself. What has brought her to this point?
The Midnight Reader 