Death Do Us Part by Steven Dunne

review by Maryom

DI Damen Brook is taking some well-earned leave, walking the Derbyshire countryside and trying to bond with his daughter Terri - but things aren't working out the way he'd hoped. Terri is clearly troubled by something - chain smoking, and drinking heavily each evening - and everything Brook says seems to put her more on edge. Then he receives a letter from a murderer he helped to convict, claiming that a recent murder investigation has been totally bodged by elderly investigating officer, DI Ford. At first Brook's inclined to dismiss it as attention-seeking ramblings but then he begins to wonder...

It all adds up to make Brook more than happy to lend a hand when his DS, John Noble, requests help on a double murder enquiry. 

In a quiet Derby suburb, an elderly couple have been murdered, cleanly, with single shots to the heart, in a style more akin to a gangland execution than a robbery-gone-wrong shooting. Noble also feels there may be links to a similar killing the previous month in a different area of the city - coincidentally another of DI Ford's cases. 

Although I read crime novels before, since I started blogging about books, I've read so many good thrillers that an extra hook is needed to make an individual story or author's work stand out. Steven Dunne's thrillers always hold on to that edge for me. Firstly, for the simple reason that they're set in my home city, Derby - though I hope that we don't have quite so many murderers in our midst as his books would imply! He's created a believable but troubled detective in Damen Brook, always provides a good array of suspects, and also does what might be called 'a good line' in murderers; not a psycho who'll just attack the first person to hand but someone with a warped mind who feels his actions are justified.

Death Do Us Part, with DI Brook making his sixth appearance, is no exception. While most of the action is safely on the far side of town, one murder scene is only a couple of miles from my door. Brook himself seems to be on the way to ridding himself of his personal demons at last - but unfortunately they seem to have moved on to his daughter Terri, whose life looks like it's descending into chaos. There's an excellent line-up of suspects, each of them seemingly quite capable of being the murderer, and, without descending to the squealing tyres of a tv car chase, there's a suitably dramatic ending.

Maryom's review - 5 stars 
Publisher - Headline 
Genre - Adult Crime Thriller