One For Sorrow by Helen Fields @Helen_Fields @AvonBooksUK

My thanks to Avon Books for an advance copy for review

Source: Review copy
Publication: 3 March 2022 from Avon
PP: 384
ISBN-13: 978-0008379339

One for sorrow, two for joy
Edinburgh is gripped by the greatest terror it has ever known. A lone bomber is targeting victims across the city and no one is safe.

Three for a girl, four for a boy
DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach face death every day – and not just the deaths of the people being taken hostage by the killer.

Five for silver, six for gold
When it becomes clear that with every tip-off they are walking into a trap designed to kill them too, Ava and Luc know that finding the truth could mean paying the ultimate price.

Seven for a secret never to be told…
But with the threat – and body count – rising daily, and no clue as to who’s behind it, neither Ava nor Luc know whether they will live long enough to tell the tale…

Every time I pick up a Helen Fields book, I wonder whether she can deliver another cracker. It must be so hard to sustain this level of tension and mystery. As I read One For Sorrow, I found myself wondering about the mind of a writer who constantly seeks new and innovative ways to wreak havoc and destruction upon their subjects.

Of course I need not have worried. One For Sorrow is explosive, dark, riveting and thrilling. It’s also, and perhaps this is signalled by its departure from the Perfect in the title which has graced this series to date, a game changer.

Shocking from the outset, Ava, Luc and the team have to contend with a monstrous bomber who is terrorising Edinburgh with the most grotesque staged events imaginable. It’s strange to find a city you know so well become the subject of something so terrible and the sheer perversion of these acts set against the old cobbled streets and fascinating history of the city gives this story an extra frisson of horror.

At the same time, we are given the creeps by the worst kind of harassment and coercive control as a man stalks a woman and when she spurns him, makes her life a living hell.

Luc and Ava are tested as never before and Ava is taking the events in this book so personally, feeling responsible for things that she could never have foreseen, never mind prevented. She is unlikely to be the same woman by the time this ends.

I very much enjoyed the addition of Connie Woolwine into this team. First brought to our attention in The Shadow Man, Connie is a lively, forthright American psychological profiler who knows her stuff. I hope we see more of her in future books in this series as well as in her own starring role.

I know that you will want to know how the Luc and Ava story develops, but of course you won’t want me to tell you. All I can say is that nothing is ever straightforward for these two and by the time this book had ended my heart was in small bits on the floor.

Verdict: Helen Fields never fails to keep the tension high, the adrenalin flowing at top speed and the excitement bubbling over as events develop with a fast and furious pace. Every time I think she can’t top the last book, she outdoes herself. One For Sorrow is another fabulous, twisty, intense and devastating book in this unmissable series.

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