Cat & Mouse – MJ Arlidge
When you think you’re safe,
When you think you’re all alone,
That’s when he’ll come for you…
A silent killer stalks the city, targeting those home alone at night, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with the victims.
As panic spreads, Detective Inspector Helen Grace leads the investigation, but is herself a hunted woman, her every step shadowed by a ruthless psychopath bent on revenge.
As she tracks the murderer, Grace begins to suspect there is a truly shocking home truth that connects these brutal crimes. But what she will find is something more twisted than she could ever suspect…
My thanks to the publishers, Orion, for a review copy and to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for the opportunity to join the Cat & Mouse blog tour.
Sometimes all I want to read is an exciting murder story with short, punchy chapters and some nasty bad guys to make me want to root for the lead character. Thank you MJ Arlidge for Cat & Mouse – I needed you this week!
The lead character in this case is DI Helen Grace and in the books which came before Cat & Mouse she has had more than a bit of a rough time. She’s disliked by her boss, has a death threat hanging over her, is at odds with a former lover (a colleague) who she now needs to testify against and the local press are out to get her. It probably helps to have read the previous books to get the full story behind her predicament but the author does make sure you will know enough to understand why DI Grace is a woman under intense pressure.
To compound this pressure the book opens with a particularly brutal murder. A woman, home alone as she waited for her husband to return from a late-night training session is restrained and subdued while an intruder steals her jewellery. Before the intruder leaves he pulls out a small axe and buried it in the back of her head.
The victim was a young mother, attractive, successful and prominent on social media. The press are baying for a quick arrest but DI Grace and her team have little to go on. It’s a frustrating case but the victim’s husband knows the killer, his wife had a stalker and he is sure the police should look no further than the guy who had been harassing her. Is a quick outcome going to be possible? Well, if she can prove his guilt then it may be a good outcome for Helen and her team.
I came late to this series. Cat & Mouse is the eleventh Helen Grace novel and I joined around book six or seven (I now have all the books I missed in my TBR). It’s rare for me to get sucked into a series which I haven’t followed from the first book but in this case I have gone out of my way to try to catch up. MJ Arlidge writes gripping and exciting stories, the kind of book which makes you want to keep reading late into the night.
I really enjoyed Cat & Mouse. Once or twice Grace seems to morph from police detective to action hero which didn’t quite seem in keeping with my perception of her character, but the action scenes do make for exciting reading. Lots of red herrings and plenty of plot threads surrounding Helen’s colleagues and also the reporter who is determined to undermine Helen at every opportunity. Highly recommend this series so don’t miss out.
Cat & Mouse is published by Orion and available now in hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/cat-and-mouse/m-j-arlidge/9781409188506
