Eight killers. One house. And the almost perfect murder…

Starling House is home to some of Britain’s deadliest teenagers, still too young for prison.

When the latest arrival is found brutally murdered, DCI Matilda Darke and her team investigate, and discover a prison manager falling apart and a sabotaged security system. Neither the staff nor the inmates can be trusted.

The only person Matilda believes is innocent is facing prison for the rest of his life. With time running out, she must solve the unsolvable to save a young man from his fate, and find a murderer in a house full of killers…

My thanks to the Killer Reads team for a review copy which I received through Netgalley

The third in the DCI Matilda Darke series and A Room Full of Killers is another cracking read from Michael Wood.

A story set primarily within a secure facility where teenage boys, too young for prison, are incarcerated. They are moved from around the country to Starling House on the outskirts of Sheffield. Their crimes the shame of their family (where their family were not victims) and their notoriety splashed across newspaper headlines. Away from the spotlight they are held together in Starling House, a poorly resourced institution where the facility manager is doing everything in her power to keep things ticking over.

A new entrant to Starling House is about to upset the balance and the pressure which has been building is about to blow. A murder – the victim laid out in a public room and stabbed multiple times. The suspects: all the residents or a staff member pushed too far? A problem for the police as there is no obvious motive – all the young criminals were locked into their rooms for the night so how did someone have freedom to roam around and kill a fellow resident.

Crime readers will love the “locked room” puzzle which Michael Wood has devised. When the police attend a crime scene where they know there are already known killers in their midst it throws a highly entertaining curveball and watching Matilda Darke and her colleagues contend with this unwelcome problem is great fun.

As for Matilda, she has had a tough time of it in the first two novels and the memory of a very high profile failure is not going away in A Room Full of Killers.  I have been enjoying the ongoing story arc which has been hanging over Matilda in the first three books and it is nicely brought on this time around. NB each book can stand alone, the arc is well explained as is key to Matilda’s character.

Matilda Darke should become a familiar character to anyone that enjoys crime fiction.  Michael Wood is building a great series here and you want to ensure you are here for the journey.

A Room Full of Killers is available in digital format, and paperback from 18 May 2017. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Room-Full-Killers-Matilda-thriller-ebook/dp/B01LKXFZZ0/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1492548578&sr=1-1