Published by Avon

Publication date – 6 February 2020

Source – review copy

Alone, trapped in the darkness and with no way out, Bart Campbell knows that his chances of being found alive are slim.

Drugged and kidnapped, the realisation soon dawns that he’s been locked inside a shipping container far from his Edinburgh home. But what Bart doesn’t yet know is that he’s now heading for France where his unspeakable fate is already sealed…

DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach are working on separate cases that soon collide as it becomes clear that the men and women being shipped to France are being traded for women trafficked into Scotland.

With so many lives at stake, they face an impossible task – but there’s no option of failure when Bart and so many others will soon be dead…

When Bart Campbell wakes up he doesn’t know where he is. As he begins to explore his surroundings he starts to wish he hadn’t found out. Elenuta knows exactly where she is but when she tries to escape she begins to wish she hadn’t . DI Luc Callanach is in France, temporarily seconded back to Interpol. A Scottish man has been found murdered and Callanach has to work out who did it and why. Meanwhile DCI Ava Turner is investigating the disappearance of Bart Campbell and the murder of a man found shot in his home. Soon the pair realise that their cases are linked and it’s a race against time to find Bart before the same fate awaits him.

There is not so much of a mystery to solve with Perfect Kill. The reader knows from the outset who one of the culprits is and with the murder in France the reader is exposed to the information at the same time as the detectives. This is more of a race against time than a whodunit and that is not a bad thing. The pace of the story pulls the reader along, with the narrative alternating between Bart, Elenuta, Luc and Ava so that the whole story comes together with it’s different threads.

There was more focus on the investigation rather than the characters in this book than in some of the other books in the series I have read. There is an ongoing thread of the relationship between Ava and Luc but this has to take a back burner in light of the fact the two are in different countries. Then there is a crisis involving Natasha, Ava’s best friend that distract’s Ava from her troubles with Luc. The characters are so established now and work together well, despite with their personal relationship. It is easy to envisage the books being adapted for the screen.

This is the 6th book in the Callanach and Turner series. I’ve dipped in and out of the books and so I hadn’t read all of the others before reading Perfect Kill. Whilst there is always a benefit to reading a series in order my enjoyment wasn’t spoiled by the fact that I hadn’t read the previous book.

Helen Fields is not one to shy away from the darker, sordid side of life. There are scenes that will make the reader want to howl with rage. Whilst some will say it is only fiction, the sad fact is that if someone can imagine the situations described in the book for beneign purposes then someone can imagine them for altogether worse purposes.

Perfect Kill is a solid, entertaining crime novel that will keep the reader gripped. It’s a welcome return to the lives of Luc Callanach and Ava Turner and I look forward to reading more from Helen Fields in the future.