Bad Terms: A page-turning British detective crime thriller

by Alex Walters

Dark deeds in the Peak District refuse to stay buried…

When a skeleton is unearthed at a building site in the village of Meresham, the police immediately link the case to a notorious missing persons investigation. Jayne Arnold was sixteen when she disappeared in the long, hot summer of 1976, and has not been seen since.

Soon after the bones are found, a tragic accident occurs at an elite boarding school nearby. The young victim fell to her death from the roof of a building. Digging into the girl’s background links her to an attempted expose of donations from unsavoury individuals. When further deaths follow, does it suggest a cover up is underway? Who stood to lose most from the truth coming out? And how do recent crimes link to events from more than 45 years ago? DI Annie Delamere and her team are tasked to answer these questions, but her own mother may stand between Annie and the truth.

A new instalment in the gripping and atmospheric DI Annie Delamere series that fans of Roz Watkins, Stephen Booth and Cara Hunter will love.

• ISBN13: 9781800326408
• Publish Date: 24 February 2022
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Canelo
• Imprint: Canelo Crime
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Bad Terms is the third Annie Delamere police procedural by Alex Walters. Released 24th Feb 2022 by Canelo, it's 304 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. 

This series had managed to fly under my radar for until this, the third book. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of writing and plotting, and definitely will be on the lookout for future releases from this talented author. The story here is quite intricate and I needed to flip back in the book a couple times to check earlier developments; definitely a read which requires the reader's attention. It was slightly hampered for me as well, because I was reading it as a standalone. The main protagonist's mother was in the detective corps as an AC, and not always inside the boundaries, and that figures in this story as well. Although not strictly necessary, I would recommend picking up the earlier books in the series for the backstory. 

Although not at all derivative, in a lot of good ways, this style of this book reminded me of McGown's excellent Lloyd & Hill procedurals, with a dash of Booth's Cooper & Fry books. There are currently 3 books available in this series, making it a good candidate for a weekend binge read. 

Four stars. Definitely one for fans of British procedurals. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.