Blood Lines (Detective Kim Stone)

by Angela Marsons

[Leah]

Angela Marsons plans to write sixteen books in her Kim Stone series, and let me tell you THAT WILL NOT BE ENOUGH KIM STONE FOR ME. I have just finished Blood Lines, number 5 in the series, and I just can’t get enough! Kim Stone is the kind of detective you can read about all day and I just know sixteen books will not be enough for me; her personality, the way she works as a police officer, everything about Kim Stone makes the books so exciting. Maybe she isn’t the warmest person in the world, but I feel like if you know Kim personally, she’ll have your back for life, like she does for her team book after book after book. I like her frank honesty, how she doesn’t hold her temper back and needs Bryant there to soften her barbs.

Blood Lines once again sees Kim drawing battle lines with Alexandra Thorne, it isn’t the main plot, the death of two people with a single stab wound is the main plot, but when Alexandra Thorne is around it kind of feels like she takes over the plot, that really the book is all about her and what she plans to do and despite being in prison, she has plans (duh) and they involve Kim (duh, again, because Thorne is nothing if not a pain in Kim’s backside, a thorn if you will allow it…) and once again it’s like a dance. I was wary of the idea of Thorne being back, because of how it ended last time, how she almost destroyed Kim mentally and I didn’t want to see that happening again, but then there’s another part of me that feels Thorne is one of those recurring villains, someone who can go toe-to-toe with Kim, but that you feel (hope!) that Kim can always best.

I really enjoyed Blood Lines, I’ve said in all of my reviews of the Kim Stone series that I love the camaraderie the detectives have; how Bryant is the good cop to Kim’s bad cop; how Stacey solves things from the office, working her hacker magic (not really hacker magic, just FYI) and how Dawson feels a bit like an outcast, makes mistakes, but can do good work. Even Woody, Kim’s boss, is an integral part, and I fear for each new book that someone may come in and upset the delicate balance. I mean we’re five books in and no one has died, which is a major achievement and although it was a close thing in Blood Lines, the team is in tact (FOREVER, ANGELA OR I WILL HAVE WORDS WITH YOU). They get the job done and my love for Bryant grows once again, because despite Kim’s prickliness and willingness to throw herself into bad situations, Bryant is always there to help her out.

I loved how the case came together in Blood Lines, how it all panned out, and I didn’t see it coming. I loved the extra bits we learned of Kim’s relationship with her mother, and her complicated past, and Barney put in yet another stellar performance. I do love that dog. I can’t wait to get stuck into Dead Souls, Angela Marsons is one of the very best (if not the best, let’s be honest here) crime writers around. Her books are fast-paced, frantic but they have a lot of heart. The cases are fresh each time around and while some book series start to wane a little bit after five books, I am still not bored of Kim Stone, it doesn’t feel rote or routine, and I have no idea why this is not yet a TV series because it would be BRILLIANT. Who needs Luther when you have D.I. Kim Stone?