The Girl Who Had No Fear – Grab This Book

Guest Post – Marnie Riches (The Girl Who Had No Fear and Born Bad)

I am delighted to welcome Marnie Riches back to Grab This Book.

The 4th George McKenzie novel, The Girl Who had no Fear, released a couple of weeks ago and plunges George into a whole new level of peril. But not content with putting our favourite criminologist through the emotional ringer, Marnie has also been working on a new series which will kick off next year when Born Bad releases.

I caught up with Marnie to chat about her busy year and what we can hope to see in 2017…

It’s been a busy 2016 for me. In addition to writing The Girl Who Had No Fear, I have also penned the first book in my brand new Manchester series, entitled Born Bad. I’m extremely excited about it. Not only am I playing god over a killer cast of new characters, but this is my first foray into print as well as e-book. As digital-first acquisitions by Avon’s imprint, Maze, the George McKenzie series (aka The Girl Who series) is not yet in print, though it has been both award-winning and best-selling. I do think we will see George in print at some point, but not yet, which makes the release of Born Bad on 9^th March 2017 a real milestone for my career as a crime writer. I’m hoping it’s going to be, like, EVERYWHERE (as my teenaged daughter would say).

Born Bad is set in my home town – Manchester: the most violent city in the UK. Though I’ve lived in London, Cambridge, Huddersfield and Utrecht, I’ve spent most of my life in Manchester – my formative years until the age of 18, and also the last nine years. I have great civic pride in this melting pot of a city, with its world class music and culture. Anyone born in Manchester has a little bit of grit running through their bloodstream, and of course, a little webbing between the old fingers! It being the most violent city in the UK, of course, means that Manchester is constantly abuzz with criminal activity. What better place therefore to set a series all about the (fictitious) villains that run Manchester’s criminal underworld – a story about north vs south and men vs women? I can reveal that the series has some incredible, surprising anti-heroes, feisty heroines and an entertaining army of quirky, mentally unstable muscle. I’m told readers of Martina Cole and Kimberley Chambers will love it but I think anyone who likes a good yarn about bad guys in a gritty setting will love it too.

I wasn’t in any way ready to take a break from the George McKenzie series, and in fact, I’m contracted to write a fifth book, which will be released in early 2018. While readers still clamour to read George stories, I’m clamouring the write them. There’s always more for George to say and do, and The Girl Who Had No Fear opens the door to a whole new dynamic in George’s extended family. It was my publisher that suggested I might like to write something set in Manchester. I jumped at the chance to have two series running concurrently. What fun to write! And long may the two series run…

Juggling the editing of one novel in a series at the same time as writing another novel in another series was a bit of a challenge logistically, but I got there in the end, thanks to some good time management and long hours. Fortunately, the manuscripts I deliver are, in the main, in pretty clean shape already (Solid graft. Nothing more), so the work wasn’t too extensive. It does require some mental agility to leap from one world and set of characters to another and then back again, however! It’s my pleasure to be kept on my toes in this way.

Thinking about it, writing about Manchester and Amsterdam makes perfect sense. Both are rainy, cold cities, roughly on a par geographically. The Dutch are very forthright. Mancunians are very forthright. Both cities have a big club and drug scene. I guess many readers of the George series will find something to love in the new Manchester series, if only it’s the bad weather and trafficking theme.

The Girl Who Had No Fear is available on this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Fear-George-McKenzie-Book-ebook/dp/B01GNSR5M8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1481494069&sr=1-1&keywords=the+girl+who+had+no+fear

You can read my review here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=2223

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November 22

The Girl Who Had No Fear – Marnie Riches

Amsterdam: a city where sex sells and drugs come easy. Four dead bodies have been pulled from the canals – and that number’s rising fast. Is a serial killer on the loose? Or are young clubbers falling prey to a lethal batch of crystal meth?

Chief Inspector Van den Bergen calls on criminologist Georgina McKenzie to help him solve this mystery. George goes deep undercover among the violent gangs of Central America. Working for the vicious head of a Mexican cartel, she must risk her own life to find the truth. With murder everywhere she turns, can George get people to talk before she is silenced for good?

My thanks to Avon, Harper Collins for my review copy which I received through Netgalley.

After a cliff-hanger ending at the end of The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows, Marnie Riches returns with the 4th George McKenzie thriller: The Girl Who Had No Fear. I was more than ready to pick this book up and re-unite with my favourite criminologist.

The housekeeping first – it is the 4th in the series and The Girl Who Had No Fear does pick up on quite a few plot threads from the previous books (not least that cliff-hanger). However, the author does ensure that the reader is kept informed of the past events. So if you were to pick up the series for the first time on book 4 then you would not find it too tricky to keep up. That said, I would urge you to read the first three books – they are brilliant!

In The Girl Who Had No Fear we are back in Amsterdam with Chief Inspector Van den Bergen who has an unwelcome problem on his hands. Dead bodies are turning up in the canals with an alarming frequency. Initially investigations had been hampered by the length of time the bodies had been in the water, however, a newly discovered body reveals that a contaminated batch of crystal-meth may have found its way into Amsterdam.

Van den Bergen recruits George and his colleague “Elvis” to work in the clubs of Amsterdam to see if either of them are able to identify the source of the drugs – one name keeps cropping up and it will take George and Van den Bergen across Europe and over to Central America.

Aside from this investigation we are in Central America where we follow the exploits of the big-bad of this story, a human trafficker and drug dealer known as el cocodrilo. He is a particularly nasty individual and brought a really dark edge to the story, always nice to have such a despicable villain in a story as you know that at some point your heroes are going to cross his path. If you have read the previous books you know that there is no guarantee Marnie Riches will allow all her key players to come through any such confrontation unscathed!

I found the pacing of The Girl Who Had No Fear to be perfectly judged, the story had me hooked and I found that I was reluctant to stop reading at the end of each chapter – I had to keep going to see what may happen next. I particularly enjoyed the extra focus on Van den Bergen’s younger colleague, Elvis. With no spoilers allowed in my review, Elvis does not have the best of times in this story and in a book with many standout moments, his scenes were probably my favourites.

Just so I can be clear – reading The Girl Who Had No Fear was an absolute treat. It is dark, enthralling and delivers shocks a-plenty. Another belter from Marnie Riches who is going from strength to strength.

The Girl Who Had No Fear is released on 1st December 2016 and you can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Fear-George-McKenzie-Book-ebook/dp/B01GNSR5M8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479755287&sr=8-1&keywords=the+girl+who+had+no+fear

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