Published: 29th December 2016. Publisher: Penguin
Format: Hardcover, Kindle, Paperback, Audio Genre: Crime
Prison is no place for a detective.
Helen Grace was one of the country's best police investigators.
Now she's behind bars with the killers she caught.
Framed for murder...
She knows there is only way out:
stay alive until her trial and somehow prove her innocence.
Locked up with a killer...
But when a mutilated body is found in the cell next door,
Helen fears her days are numbered.
A murderer is on the loose
And she must find them.
Before she's next . . .
My Review...
This is the sixth instalment in the Helen Grace series and was a brilliant read.
At the end of book five, Helen is set up by her nephew and framed for murders she did not commit.
Book six is solely based in Holloway prison, apart from a few insights from Sanderson and Brooks, DI’s at Southampton police station.
Brooks never gives up on Helen and spends all her time tracking down Robert and trying to free her friend and colleague, regardless of the risk to her career and her home life, which is already suffering.
Helen has a couple of women that have befriended her but on the whole keeps out of the inmates way for the best part, avoiding confrontation with women that she helped put behind bars
Almost everyone wants her dead or wishes to damage her in a big way, coppers, bent or otherwise are not welcome and Helen is reminded of that every day.
One evening a woman in the cell next to helen's, occupied by a prisoner called Leah, is found dead.. no blood is anywhere to be seen and all signs are pointing to a natural death, if it wasn't for the mouth being sewn up into a grim smile, the eyes and private parts also being sewn shut and a thick substance like Vaseline is blocked into every hole.
No one knows how the killer managed to get into the locked cell, at night without a sound and no signs of the victim making a struggle..
Helen starts to investigate as much as she can, with very limited resources she sources out the Golden Girls, Holloways pensioner prisoners that are the self proclaimed councillors to all inmates. If anyone knows anything of value then it is these women.
Helen has made a friend in Bab's, one of the golden girls and she gets as much information as she can from her before questioning suspects.
This causes anger and irritation within the prison, and it is not long before Helen is set upon by some heavier, volatile women in order to keep her quiet, earning Helen a stay in the infirmary.
As usual Emilia Garanaita, the reporter is always on Helens tail, trying her hardest to make money of of the back of a police officer's so called fall from grace.
Half way through the book and a few more women having being murdered in tis gruesome way, Helen comes to a couple of conclusions, confronting the men she believes murdered these women but it is the final few chapters that Grace finally manages to piece it all together and confronts the real murderer, and she is shocked to find the signs have been there, under her nose the whole time!!!
As usual, I will not give any spoilers as I feel it ruins the readers experience, so I hope the synopsis and review I have written is enough to make you want to pick up the book, although I highly recommend starting at the beginning of the series and follow DI Helen Grace in her career and life, as you get to build up a picture of her past, the type of woman that she is and why she does what she does and fully understand by the sixth book why her nephew frames her for all the murders.
Reading this book, I honestly, half way through thought I had guessed the murderer!! But I was wrong, as usual and did not suspect for one second who the actual murderer was..
Extremely clever and Full of great twists this book does not disappoint..
M.J Arlidge makes you really feel like your there, in prison , experiencing it all with Helen.
★★★★★
See my Instagram account for the previous five reviews.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR...
Born in 1974, Matthew Arlidge is an English author who focuses mainly on crime novels.
For the last fifteen years, he has been working in television where he majored in high end drama productions.
Connect with M.J Arlidge
Other books in this series ( in order )..
Hide And Seek #6
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Broken Dolls by James Carol ( book 1 )
Dead Of Winter by Lee Weeks ( book 1 )
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