sHARON bOLTON – Judefire33

When a baby is snatched from its pram and cast into the river Thames, off-duty police officer Lacey Flint is there to prevent disaster. But who would want to hurt a child?

DCI Mark Joesbury has been expecting this. Monitoring a complex network of dark websites, Joesbury and his team have spotted a new terrorist threat from the extremist, women-hating, group known as ‘incels’ or ‘involuntary celibates.’ Joesbury’s team are trying to infiltrate the ring of power at its core, but the dark web is built for anonymity, and the incel army is vast.

Pressure builds when the team learn the snatched child was just the first in a series of violent attacks designed to terrorise women. Worse, the leaders of the movement seem to have singled out Lacey as the embodiment of everything they hate, placing her in terrible danger...

Firstly thank you to Orion Publishing for my print proofs of The Dark.

Secondly! I’ve no idea how, but the Lacey Flint series by Sharon Bolton had gone under my radar…so before I read The Dark, I binge read the 4 previous novels….and oh my God, they were amazing, I’m shook, after finally finishing the Dark today! If you’ve not read the series, here are the books in order….

I was absolutely gripped from book one , they are all brilliantly written….but this is Sharon Bolton we are talking about!

So onto my review of The Dark. I loved this book, I adore the characters in the story, Lacey Flint, Mark Joesbury, Dana Tulloch and her partner Helen, all are real and tangible and their flaws are laid bare in every book, but especially in The Dark. I don’t want to give too much away but the storyline is shockingly real, and actually gave me anxiety as I know it’s based on some facts! At the heart of The Dark is a plot involving The Mets finest Police Officers, a group of misogynistic criminals, who think violence against women is justified and the dark web…..it all becomes clear and very very real the further you start to read!

I couldn’t put The Dark down, the plot is bloody electric and the revealing of the perpetrators had me fooled, up until that point! I think this is Lacey Flint’s finest novel as it’s is slap bang up to date and her own secrets are there for us, the reader to see and worry about (I don’t care what Lacey’s done I love her!!)

I’m hoping that Sharon will write more in the Lacey Flint series, as I know she’s got more novels in her….I’m actually begging you to write more Sharon!!

If you enjoy British crime fiction with epic characters and totally believable storylines and plots then The Dark is going to be the book for you! And if you’ve not come across Lacey Flint…..where have you been!!

A smashing and relevant 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ star read!