Review: Dark Water

Dark Water by Robert Bryndza
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Had this one pre-ordered and was looking forward to it, and although I just started today I am already at 40%, and reading this just after Pulse: A Kate Redman Mystery: Book 10, I see the difference, why this will probably get 5 deserved stars, and the other got 3.5 rounded to 3: more mystery, page-turner, more suspense, better heroine (way better, and my kind of MC). Very little romance, and what is made of that, keeping it real. This book is way longer, but being a real page-turner with the case always taking more space, you do not feel it (one thing that did not bother me, with the other book, that was a fast read). The whole, cold Sunday (October 23d, 2016, with temperature outside 8 degrees Celsius/46 degrees Fahrenheit) I read till I finished the book with minutes to spare till Midnight. There was no dragging in the middle, as sometimes even by very good authors, where I could have stopped.

Comparing this to the other book, it is obvious for me, why I like this a lot more and gave 5 stars, oh well, I mentioned it above. There are a few short hints of sex-scenes, one explizit gay sex-scene, but nothing fetish or kinky (sadly). Also, even though the MC commits nearly the same mistake as the MC in Pulse, it does seem more real to me and also it plays out differently (so far, that may change). And the MC is not weak, rather stubborn and headstrong, one of the reasons she is advancing in the Police. Even her Sister plays a strong part here, with a nice turn during the final night in Erika's flat.
Also, with the tea-drinking, and the places and all, it does feel way more like the UK than the descriptions in Pulse, although the difference is minor.

The crime is rather twisted, with quite a few deaths, a few twists could be guessed, I did not, and some twists need the tell-all (Agatha Christie-like) in the end by one of the guilty parties, as not all facts are discovered by the police.

Highly recommended and can be read as a standalone, as Erika (the MC) has changed jobs, as was the ending of the book before, where she took her superior up on his offer to quit (minor spoiler if you have not read that one yet).

This author is on my lists for auto-email when a new book is published. New books in this series are an instant buy, and also, not too expensive. This is surely a book I will recommend to my family, but so far this is not available in our native German.


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