Blunt Force

by Lynda La Plante

Things can't get much worse for detective Jane Tennison.

Unceremoniously kicked off the adrenaline-fuelled Flying Squad, she now plies her trade in Gerald Road, a small and sleepy police station in the heart of London's affluent Knightsbridge. With only petty crime to sink her teeth into, Tennison can feel her career slowly flatlining.

That is until the discovery of the most brutal murder Jane has ever seen. Charlie Foxley has been found viciously beaten to death with a cricket bat - his body dismembered and disembowelled.

As a big-time theatrical agent, Foxley had a lot of powerful friends - but just as many enemies. And alongside her old friend DS Spencer Gibbs, Tennison must journey into the salacious world of show business to find out which one is the killer, before they strike again.

• ISBN10: 1499862474
• ISBN13: 9781499862478
• Publish Date: 25 August 2020 (first published 18 August 2020)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Imprint: Zaffre
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 448
• Language: English

Reviews

This is a good story with a great main character, you can't help but like Jane and root for her. This is the first book I've read in the Tennison series. The book starts off with many different characters and soon with the murder of Charlie Foxley. There was many suspects and with many who had the means and motive to kill him. It wasn't until about halfway through that you can see the direction the case was taking them and close to the end we get to see who and why Charlie Foxley was murdered.

We were never told outright what happened to Yasmin, but it is heavily implied that she is dead and her family did it. It did bother me when the book was done that Jane wasn't able to push her superiors into allowing her to pursue looking for the girl. But soon realized that sometimes that is just how a case goes and I don't think their was a way for Jane to verify that Yasmin went back to Pakistan. Even though we got a realistic ending, everything was cleared up in terms of the Police getting their murderer.

We see Jane get a conclusion to stuff that happened in previous books and even though I haven't read those books, I was still rooting for Jane to succeed. Especially with how some of her male colleagues treat her. It's great to see her get some confidence as the book moves along and she doesn't back down when she has a hunch.

I will be adding the other books to my list to eventually read, since I liked this one. I like Police Procedural and even though I've never read one set in a different place than the US, it was easy enough to follow along with the different procedures and different style of words.

Book was an easy read and I finished in a few days. I won this in a giveaway.

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of Blunt Force in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Blunt Force is the sixth novel in Lynda La Plante's Jane Tennison series. This is the origin story of the one and only Jane Tennison, and thus is the story of how she became the confident investigator so many fans knew her to be.

Jane Tennison has had a rough go, as of late. She was removed from the Flying Squad, a busy and high-energy job that she loved, and sent to a much smaller and less glamorous station instead. On the bright side, there are still crimes worth diving into.

The most recent murder on her radar is going to send her into the world of theatre itself, as she struggles to understand why the victim was targeted. This is anything but an easy case, with more complications that Tennison could have ever anticipated.

Jane Tennison is back, and that means she's dealing with another brutal crime. You've got to admit, even in her early days, this is a woman who had a talent for finding the most complex (and bloody) cases out there.

Blunt Force was another interesting read in this crime drama series, portraying a version of Tennison who is struggling to make a place for herself in an un-accepting (and male-dominated) career. It makes for a heavy read at times, and that's before taking the murder into account.

I've loved every book I've read from this series so far, but I'll admit that this is probably my least favorite of the bunch. There was something about it that just didn't draw me in, not like the rest did. Maybe that's just me, or the mood I was in. Maybe it's because Tennison felt like she was being especially hard on herself this time around (that or I was more sensitive to it).

On the bright side, the murder mystery itself was quite intriguing, and I really enjoyed watching Tennison and her coworker peel back the layers to reveal the truth. This was probably one of the more complex murders yet, thanks to everything else going on – and how much trouble they had gaining access to information.

In short, Blunt Force was every bit the police procedural fans can expect. It's dark and gritty, and not afraid to dive into the details of investigative work. It's perfect for fans who love that genre, though I'd also recommend checking out the rest of the series as well (Murder Mile being my favorite).

Check out more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks