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When DCI Matilda Darke comes to the station one morning, she receives a strange phonecall: “You’re a survivor, aren’t you Matilda? But what’s the point of surviving when everyone around you is dead?�� She assumes it’s a prank call. Not much later, the fire alarm in the station goes off. When they gather in the car park, someone starts shooting at them. 6 officers die, one of them the ACC, others include Ranjeet and Natasha. Matilda is also shot, once in her shoulder but a once in the back of her head. She’s rushed to the hospital and receives emergency surgery, but it’s not clear if she’ll survive and if so how. It will be up to DI Christian Brady to catch the shooter. But the killer has only just begun his reign of terror. There’s a mad mass-Shooter loose on the streets of Sheffield. The reader does know very early on who the madman is and what his motivation is but the police has not a clue. It’s harrowing to follow this shooter on his rampage. Little hours later, another even deadlier mass shooting takes place on the motorway.



This book takes place in 2019 when Theresa May is PM of Britain.

You can see and feel that this is a longstanding series from the bonding of the main and minor characters and all the relationships between them.

While the books starts in a classical manner with the introduction of the main characters and their complex relationships this changes within the second chapter when some of the people we’ve been only just introduced to die violently. Boom, that was something else to take in, like a cannonball in the gut!

At some point, one of the police officers thinks that he hopes never to see the day when UK police are armed. This does raise the issue though. While I have huge admiration for the British police force and their tradition of policing by consent, what if a lonely constable happens to come across violent criminals? But as long as the majority of them are against them being armed, I think they know best. Don’t be fooled into thinking that they’re defenceless though. They do have pepper spray and tasers!

I do agree with my GR friend Paromjit that the police reaction in the reality would be a lot stronger and tougher than in this book. Both detectives and other personnel would be dispatched from other stations around the country, although they have to travel there first! A station that's already understaffed and looses 2 mayor officers and 4 others will be in deep mourning and won’t be able to function properly. I doubt if they would be allowed to work on this case themselves. They make references to Adele helping with the Manchester Arena and London Bridge casualties. It’s only logical that now Sheffield receives support from other towns and cities.

The heroism of Ruth is sheer madness though. And WTF will 2 unarmed detectives do against an armed killer on a spree? This isn’t plausible. It looks as if some people are eager to get killed.

As to the brain surgery that Matilda undergoes. I’ve had a similar injury 20 years ago, not by a bullet but by an axe. The surgeon was hesitant to remove the last splinters that are still locked inside my brain tissue today because he thought that he might cause me more damage than I suffered at the time. And who am I to question his expert opinion? Luckily, apart from an impaired vision in my left eye, I’m still relatively healthy and otherwise sane (although, some may differ from opinion) but I’ve lived with this time bomb ever since.

I might be new to the series but I asked myself while reading if this is an elegant(?) way out of the series for the author. By killing so many of the original (and no doubt beloved) characters and leaving it a cliffhanger if Matilda will return to work, there are certainly major changes ahead. At the end of the book, it says to wait for more books but I have my doubts. It would be a shame if the series ends here but I can understand it because he has to juggle a huge cast of characters every time. If there is a new book in this series, the author has to find a whole new line-up. But I would hate it if this is the final book as I just started liking the characters!

I was invited by One More Chapter to read this book and this is my honest and unbiased review of it