Gemma Dean goes missing one chilly October morning, leaving behind her phone. Texts hint at secrets far darker than Kent Fisher could ever imagine.
When a body is found in his burned out car over a hundred miles away, murder brings the past crashing into the present with the first in a chain of painful discoveries.
Struggling to make sense of a past that threatens to devastate his future, Kent faces his most personal and challenging investigation so far.
But how will he deal with the fallout from one reckless moment that cost so many lives?
It's my pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for No Escape today. Many thanks to Robert Crouch for inviting me and for sending me a digital copy of the novel.
No Escape is the eighth book in Robert Crouch's Kent Fisher series and there have been a number of major changes in his life since events in No Going Back. For starters, he's no longer an environmental health officer, having left the job to concentrate on his animal sanctuary. However, some things don't change; firstly, his Westie, Columbo is still his constant companion and secondly, trouble never seems far away.
This time it's an intensely personal case as Gemma has suddenly gone missing. I have to admit to never truly warming to Gemma during the course of this series and have often found myself agreeing with Kent's stepmother, Niamh who clearly believes he is better suited to DI Ashley Goodman. Nevertheless, it's Gemma who he has chosen and her disappearance exposes his vulnerabilities in a way we've not really seen before. He spends much of the book racked with guilt and while much of it is definitely unwarranted, there are intriguing questions raised about how little he actually knows about Gemma's past.
The revelations about her earlier life actually made me feel more sympathetic towards Gemma; I can't give away any spoilers here but I will say that I felt for the situation she found herself in and grew to admire her tenacity. The characterisation was as strong as I've come to expect from this series and I enjoyed the introduction of a few new characters as well as the return of some familiar faces. DCs Naomi Foster and William Penn particularly stood out, although for very different reasons. Meanwhile, Columbo is always the star of the show whenever he appears on the page and is easily one of my favourite sidekicks in c̶r̶i̶m̶e̶ fiction.
As Kent follows the few leads he has, it's patently evident that he isn't himself and makes some errors of judgement which, though frustrating, reveal his confused sense of mind. His growing insecurity about his relationship with Gemma, combined with his uncertainty about what role he should take on within his sanctuary emphasises his loneliness, especially as he is missing two of his significant sounding boards.
As it progresses, the storyline takes on an increasingly dark tone and while I guessed a few of the revelations, I was genuinely shocked by the tense climax to the novel. It really wasn't what I'd expected to happen and leaves the series perfectly primed for the next instalment. The biggest strength of this series has always been the way in which readers become irresistibly invested in the lives of the characters and that perhaps holds more true than ever in No Escape. Robert Crouch has written another engrossing mystery that has left me eagerly looking forward to the next book, No Time to Waste.
No Escape can be purchased from Amazon UK where it is also available on Kindle Unlimited.
Follow the blog tour, details are below.
About the Author
During his 39 years as an environmental health officer (EHO), he has worked with the police on many occasions, including the investigation of fatal workplace accidents. This gave him an insight into the criminal justice system that would prove invaluable when creating the Kent Fisher mystery series.
Robert spent the majority of his environmental health career at Wealden DC, giving him a detailed knowledge and love of the South Downs and their villages.
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