20 Books for Christmas Book Six Review – The Winter Killer

Title: The Winter Killer (DI James Walker #3)

Author: Alex Pine

Genre:  Mystery & Thriller

Goodreads Rating: 4.27

My Rating:

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Source: ARC

Synopsis:

Christmas has arrived in Cumbria, and wedding bells are ringing.
But an ice-cold killer is waiting in the fells…

As the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, DI James Walker receives a phone call that puts paid to his Christmas break. During the wedding of the year at a lakeside hotel, the bride’s sister has vanished.

When Rachel left the wedding breakfast before her speech, newly-wed Libby was furious. But as the night went on with no sign of her maid-of-honour, Libby started to realise something was very, very wrong…

Before the wedding night is out, the lake is being searched for a body.

Something old, something new. One guest is a killer. The question is: who?

The most chilling crime thriller you’ll read this winter, perfect for fans of Catherine Cooper’s The Chalet and Simon McCleave’s The Snowdonia Killings – and anyone who prefers their mince pies with a side of murder. 

My Review:

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for approving me for an ARC of this book. This is the third book in the DI James Walker series but haven’t not read the previous two books, I can confirm it works very well as a standalone.

When one of DI Walker’s team is attending a wedding and one of the guest goes missing he is called in to handle the case. What starts as a simply missing person soon turns into a murder enquiry with many suspects.

I really enjoyed how this case unravelled and the different suspects that popped up. This the first time I’ve come across this team and I really liked how well they worked together. We didn’t have the egos or the backstabbing that has cropped up in other books. It was also refreshing to see a positive stance taken on the relationship between the police and the media.

Like a lot of readers I enjoy playing detective, trying to decipher the red herrings from the real clues and seeing if I can work out who the murderer is. Usually I am way off with my predictions and completely blindsided by the final reveal. That wasn’t the case with this one though. When I reached the half way point I had my thoughts on who was the murderer and couldn’t believe I was right when I got to the end.

I guess that is the reason for my lower rating. For me I like to be led down the garden path and shown how wrong I am in my predictions as it shows me how cleverly the murderer was concealed. Don’t’ get me wrong this is still a fast paced, gripping read that I enjoyed but it needed a little more punch to that final reveal. Would I read more books by Alex Pine? Most definitely!

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