Author: Anna Smith
Publisher: Quercus
Publication Date: 26th March 2015
Pages: 432
ISBN: 9781848664296
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5
Purchase: Amazon
Crime reporter Rosie Gilmour returns from hiding in Bosnia to a story of a brutal execution. University lecturer Tom Mahoney was shot at point blank range, the killing has all the signs of a hit. But who would want to kill a retired lecturer?
Rosie throws herself into the investigation, looking for a witness that has gone missing. A witness that might hold the key to the story. But she has her own reasons to stay hidden.
As Rosie digs deeper, she finds the story has connections to the Ministry of Defence and MI6 and Mahoney’s past is darker than anyone could imagine.
Rosie’s running out of time to find out the truth, before Mahoney’s killers silence her for good.
Journalist Rosie Gilmour's plane has barely hit the tarmac before she is given her latest assignment by her editor. University lecturer Tom Mahoney was shot dead in a London cafe, the killing having all the signs of a hit yet on paper Mahoney is just a retired lecturer. Who would have reason for wanting him dead? Rosie's digging unearths a number of secrets, and connections to the Ministry of Defence and MI6.
You would think by now that Rosie could spot trouble coming a mile off, and would at least attempt to avoid it, but it was in A Cold Killing that I really got a sense of just how much she thrives on the danger, and how without it in her life there would be something missing. This is further solidified later on in the book with some interesting twists in her relationship, I won't say which relationship that is.
The real strength in this series is definitely in Anna's characterisation. Not just in Rosie herself, but in the secondary characters that we have followed over the course of the series. It is also in the characters that she creates just for a particular story. The standout one in A Cold Killing being a girl called Ruby, who when introduced at the start of the book left me with a number of questions. Anna creates very strong female characters, and I enjoyed Rosie and Ruby's scenes together as they have a number of similarities (yet also some major differences!). It's also in the 'bad guys' that she creates. Always scarily realistic, the ones in A Cold Killing especially so, just because of how dangerous certain things that happened over the course of the book would be were they to happen in real life.
It can often be hard for an author to mix things up as a series progresses, and to find that edge to stop things from becoming stale and repetitive, yet at book five this series shows absolutely no signs of slowing down, and with the cliffhanger delivered by Anna here, it looks as though it won't be slowing down for a while yet. Once again A Cold Killing was another immensely enjoyable story from Anna Smith, one that kept me guessing, had me enthralled throughout, and one that I had finished in just over a day, when I then realised how long the wait would be for the next one. Crime fans yet to discover Anna Smith, do so now, fans who have already discovered her, pick up this book and enjoy!
4/5
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