Tuesday 9 June 2015

REVIEW: Angela Marsons - Evil Games ( D.I. Kim Stone #2 )

Genre: Crime / Thriller
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: 29th May 2015
Pages: 352

MY REVIEW:

I received an advance copy of Evil Games (D.I. Kim Stone Book Two) from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This is said review. This book is published by Bookouture.

This is book two in a series. I strongly urge you to buy book one, Silent Scream, which I reviewed here before reading Evil Games. It’s not a necessity as both books stand up very well as individual stories but it certainly helps to build your relationship with the main characters.

Kim Stone and her team have a body. No witness’s, no clues. When it comes to light he is not long out of jail, things take a different turn.

Alex Thorne is a psychiatrist. She is also a sociopath. Her patient is responsible for the body, tricked into killing him by Alex herself. It’s part of an experiment. Alex has no remorse, in fact no feeling at all. She intends to keep going with her experiments. Will Stone and her team be able to stop her before the bodies mount up? Will Stone’s own traumatic past make her susceptible to Alex’s experiment?

Add to this the fact they are also trying to figure out who the “other” person was involved in a harrowing case for all, Stone’s job is made doubly difficult in dealing with double the evil.

It’s two for one at Confessions! Reviews I mean.

Review 1: Seriously…….don’t waste your time reading my ramblings below. Just do yourself a favour and buy this book. You will thank me for it later. Make sure you buy Book One, Silent Scream at the same time then thank me twice.

Review 2: See above.

Angela Marsons. Remember who told you this name first (well on this blog anyway). This lady is going to be up there at the top of the best seller’s lists for many many years. As I write this review both books are hovering around the top ten in many Amazon lists. You want a crime book to get your teeth into? You want a thriller to get your teeth into? Angela Marsons. Trust me. You will not get any better than this. Before you think it…….no I’m not getting paid to keep saying Angela Marsons and I get no other benefit from this review other than blow a raspberry to you at the fact that I have read it and you haven’t! Also I want everyone to know the name Angela Marsons because she should be on your book shelf. Does it sound like I enjoyed these books?

OK let’s get down to the nitty gritty. I am not telling anything about the story. The main reason for this is you need to read it to watch it unfold and I just don’t want to tell you anything about it. I don’t want to spoil a thing for you.

Let’s talk characters. The main police team in this is superb. Led by Stone and her partner Bryant, we also have Stacey and Dawson. All four have their own roles to play within the team but all come together when it’s needed. They work as more of a family than a team of detectives. They know every flaw and good point about each other and can read each other like the proverbial book. The relationship between Stone and Bryant is absobloodylutely superb. They are serious when needed. They are humorous when needed. Even though neither of them will admit it they are like brother and sister only ones that get on.

All of the other characters in this story are also superb. Alex Thorne is horrible. Absobloodylutely horrible. I wanted her slapped on many occasions. She is perfectly written for her role in the story, Obnoxious, uncaring, ignorant facetious, the list could go on and on. There are other characters playing smaller roles in the story. Again all superbly written for their particular parts. Some you will like, some you feel sorry for and some you will want to take out the back and slowly skin alive before leaving them for dead.

Let’s talk writing style. You won’t get much better for this type of book. It is a typical police/crime thriller. Someone does something bad and they send in the police to find out did it and arrest them. The thing that makes this stand out for me is simple. Feeling. Emotion. I said it in my review of Silent Scream. Angela Marsons has this knack of making you feel every emotion from every character whether good or bad. They aren’t names on a page, they are actual people floating around in your head. It’s as if you actually know them and have done for years. Her writing just flows across the page. When the characters are excited, you are excited. When they are scared, you are scared. When they are confused, you are confused. You feel everything. It gets you right in the middle of everything and you honestly could believe you were there.

I was really glad to see that specific elements were carried over into book two namely the fact that Ms Marsons is not scared to tackle sometimes harrowing, sometimes disgusting subjects. Things that happen in this world that we wish didn’t but unfortunately do. There are a few parts of this book I found difficult to read. Difficult from the point of view that they sicken a normal person to the very pit of their stomach. Horrific at times. They are, however, handled in such a way that you nod and accept them instead of wanting to contact the writer or publisher to complain. Compassionately done without watering them down is the term I’m looking for.

Also as per the first book this one is full of subtle little twists and turns that have you thinking you know it all at one point and totally baffled at the next. Don’t think you have it solved a third of the way in. Some elements you probably will because that’s how Ms Marsons wants you to think. She’s good at that. Then she kicks you in both shins and runs away very quickly leaving you hurt and confused.

Arrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhh I could keep going about this all night!

To summarise review one: I said it all in the review.

To summarise review two: A gritty crime story that will have you hooked from the very first page to the very last. Perfect characters. Perfect writing. Perfect everything. I’m sorry to tell everyone else this but if Ms Marsons releases any more books this year, the remaining slots in my top ten list at the end of the year will be few and far between.


General rating:

★★★★★ Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Crime / Thriller rating:

★★★★★ Perfect


You can buy Evil Games ( D.I. Kim Stone #2 ) here:




You can buy Silent Scream ( D.I. Kim Stone #1 ) here:




Book Synopsis:

The greater the Evil, the more deadly the game…

When a rapist is found mutilated in a brutal attack, Detective Kim Stone and her team are called in to bring a swift resolution. But, as more vengeful killings come to light, it soon becomes clear that there is someone far more sinister at work.

With the investigation quickly gathering momentum, Kim finds herself exposed to great danger and in the sights of a lethal individual undertaking their own twisted experiment.

Up against a sociopath who seems to know her every weakness, for Detective Stone, each move she makes could be deadly. As the body count starts to mount, Kim will have to dig deeper than ever before to stop the killing. And this time - it’s personal.


Angela Marsons is the author of Amazon #1 Bestseller SILENT SCREAM.

She lives in the Black Country with her partner, their bouncy Labrador and a swearing parrot.

She first discovered her love of writing at Junior School when actual lessons came second to watching other people and quietly making up her own stories about them. Her report card invariably read "Angela would do well if she minded her own business as well as she minds other people's".

After years of writing relationship based stories (My Name Is and The Middle Child) Angela turned to Crime, fictionally speaking of course, and developed a character that refused to go away.

She is signed to Bookouture.com in an 8 book deal. The second book in the Kim Stone series, EVIL GAMES, is released 29th May 2015.


You can see more of Angela at her website.

Angela’s author page is here.

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