Grave by Luis Samways.

Follow Detective Frank McKenzie of the Boston Police Department as he tries to catch a man calling himself the Grave Digger, who has a list of 15 people he plans to kill.

This crime thriller gets off to a really chilling start and the first paragraph is one of the best to start a novel that I have read in a long while. The story starts with his first victim and the plot builds with a steady pace. Unlike other crime thrillers that are centered around the Police, Luis gives you both sides of the tale. He develops fully the characters of the Grave Digger and Detective Frank McKenzie.

I really liked the balance of this novel, it was not just about the crime and it’s detection but also the daily life of the lead detective and the killer. Both central characters had a lot to say about life in general, how society functions and the frustrations of the day job.

I found Grave to be a very entertaining book to read and I loved the sheer attitude coming forward from every character. This is book 4 in the Frank McKenzie series but you do NOT have to read them in sequence. Luis tells such a good tale, it stands on it’s own. His plot is unique and I loved the way it developed. Generally the bad guy just does his crime but in Grave his motivation is fully explored. Luis took a risk giving the Grave Digger’s point of view such prominence but it added so much more to this story.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Grave and I think that Luis Samways is an author to watch. His writing style is very similar to that of Chris Simms with the DI Jon Spicer novels. Where Chris writes about Manchester in the UK, where I have been to many times - Luis writes about Boston in America where I have never been. Yet Luis writes such a descriptive, entertaining and comfortable tale that I feel as though I could have been sitting in the back of Frank’s Ford Capri. To make a British reader who has never been to America feel at home takes talent and Luis has it by the bucket load. Well done Luis and although your novel has not yet had any reviews posted on the Goodreads website, I will vote Grave the top score of 5 stars from me.

Grave is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and was written in 2015.