The Secret Admirer (Detective Natalie Ward, #6)

by Carol Wyer

[zooloo1983]

I have just this second finished and I have tears down my face!! Carol!!! It is tough to follow on after The Blossom Twins but Carol has achieved that here. It is like she knows our fears and emotions and puts that all on Natalie, everything we would and do experience as a reader, Natalie is experiencing. That is not an easy ride.

This case is like the chicken and the egg, what comes first? If person A didn’t do this, then person B wouldn’t have done that which led to person C doing this to go back to person B and then through person D E F G etc etc so much was going on! As weird as this sounds, and it does sound weird, this book felt lighter than the last one. I can’t explain what it is because the opening scenes are awful, I mean an acid attack on someone’s face is just beyond awful (I just can’t think of any words to explain it better!). Then there are two more deaths which just do not make sense. Maybe because I am still trying to get over the horrors of the last book, maybe I’m desensitised or maybe I am just plain weird but this story had a different feel to it.

Maybe, maybe it’s because we weren’t looking for a serial killer this time and maybe because I didn’t feel the pressure of a ticking time bomb, maybe that’s why it felt lighter. There wasn’t the usual urgency in Natalie’s life. This is the first case back from that book and it’s not easy being thrown straight into an acid attack. When we are with Natalie, we feel that weight on her shoulders and we sense the black cloud because it’s the same for us. These people are like family now. What they feel we feel.

Natalie not only has a lot of pressure to solve this case but somehow David is involved. Now I washed my hands of him after the last book, but Carol said to give him another chance. So I did, and what did she do, she made me shed tears over him!! Woman! His sections of the book were hard to read, when he was being interrogated and when we see him with Natalie outside the case. I was then thrown into a frenzied panic at one point urging the story along to get the outcome for David. Tears!!!

Murray is back! Yay! The team are back together and the banter is back. We so needed Murray in the last book, the team wasn’t right, but this time he is back. He is like a dog with a bone. He is not taking any crap from anyone, oh Murray! Lucy, however, is now suffering at the hands of her job. She is now having a bit of “grief” from her partner to spend time with her and their newborn baby. The job really does take over.

It was an ease of a welcome back for Natalie but no means easy for her. Everywhere she looked she has heartbreak but she does what does best. She put her big girl pants on and she hunts for justice. She has to compartmentalise her personal life when working and I admire her for that. Don’t worry I’m not a secret admirer writing her letters…..I am an open one doing it right here LOL sorry couldn’t resist.

Well…on to the final book in the series now, quite upset about this. No dramatic end at the end of The Secret Admirer but a lot of change is in the process of happening. Whether this change will be for the better, well I am off to find out now!