Songs By Dead Girls – Lesley Kelly
When Scotland’s leading virologist goes missing, Mona and Paterson from the Health Enforcement Team are dispatched to London to find him. In a hot and unwelcoming city, Mona has to deal with a boss who isn’t speaking to her, placate the Professor’s over-bearing assistant, and outwit the people who will stop at nothing to make sure the academic stays lost.
Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh, Bernard is searching for a missing prostitute, while Maitland is trying to keep the Chair of the Parliamentary Virus Committee from finding out quite how untidy the HET office is.
My thanks to Ruth Killick for my review copy and the chance to join the blog tour.
Songs By Dead Girls takes the reader back to Lesley Kelly’s virus riddled depiction of Edinburgh first encountered in the fabulous The Health of Strangers. I was a huge fan of THoS when I read it last year (my review is here) so I was delighted to hear Lesley was re-visiting the dystopian world she had created.
Life in Edinburgh is not too dissimilar to our reality, but a terrible virus has had devastating impact upon the population and regular health screenings are required to ensure everyone remains virus-free. The HET guys are tasked with ensuring people attend their screenings and chasing down potential defaulters. Songs By Dead Girls they face a significant challenge as the primary expert on the virus has vanished just ahead of his scheduled check-up. He is due to make a presentation to the Scottish Parliament so his absence will soon be noticed – can the HET track down their missing expert without the media finding out what they are up to?
The constant threat of the virus hangs over all characters but it is fascinating to see people adapting quickly and viewing the danger as a frustration – totally believable. The story balances the HET duties and responsibilities with their family/personal lives too. These “away from work” scenes make the characters come to life for me, they are more than the day job and they have loved ones, problems and loneliness to contend with too – that engagement and buy in will keep me returning for more pages, another chapter.
Songs By Dead Girls was a brilliant read. It was fun, suitably puzzling, had several engaging plot threads which kept my attention and I love the dysfunctional HET family – they range from competent to bonkers and are so entertaining. Following their growth and development over the two books has been a treat and now that I know there is scope for more HET stories I really hope that this will happen (please).
If you enjoy a twisty thriller with engaging characters then Songs By Dead Girls is an absolute must read. I love this twisted world that Lesley Kelly has created and she delivers the fun along while also keeping an undercurrent of danger for her wonderful cast.
Songs By Dead Girls is published by Sandstone Press and is available in digital and paperback format. You can get your copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Songs-Girls-Health-Strangers-Thriller-ebook/dp/B076WDH824/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524854543&sr=8-1&keywords=lesley+kelly
