Turn To Dust
by Rachel Amphlett
Blog Tour / Review

My thanks go out to:

Author Rachel Amphlett

Tour organiser, Sarah representing Book On The Bright Side Publicity

Download courtesy of BookFunnel

for collectively supporting my spot on this Blog Tour.

With Fiction Books stop taking place close to the end of the tour, I’m sure that there will have been plenty of other reviews already shared, as well as those still to come, so why not visit a few of the other tour participants and see what they think … A full schedule of ‘Books on Tour’ spots, is shown below!

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TURN TO DUST

When the body of a naked man is found in the middle of a barren field, Detective Kay Hunter realises the investigation will test her skills to the limit.

With only one clue to the victim’s identity, her inquiries lead her to local charities for war veterans and the homeless – both of which are underfunded and overwhelmed.

Discovering that someone is offering money in return for information about the dead man and anyone connected to him, Kay realises that there is a disturbing and dark side to the victim’s past.

When a key witness disappears from a local temporary shelter, she fears the worst.

Can Kay and her team of detectives find out who is behind the man’s murder before another vulnerable person is targeted?

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RACHEL AMPHLETT

Before turning to writing, Rachel played guitar in bands, worked as a TV and film extra, dabbled in radio as a presenter and freelance producer for the BBC, and worked in publishing as a sub-editor and editorial assistant.

She now wields a pen instead of a plectrum and writes crime fiction and spy novels, including the ‘Dan Taylor’ espionage novels and the ‘Detective Kay Hunter’ series, with the new ‘Detective Mark Turpin’ series coming soon!

Rachel is a keen traveller, holding both EU and Australian passports and citizenship.

Originally from the UK, she spent more than ten years living and working in Australia, before recently returning home, where she is now based in the picturesque county of Dorset.

Visit Rachel at her website

Follow Rachel on Twitter

Catch up with Rachel on Facebook

“In 2016, a story idea popped into my head that would change my life forever. I really didn’t imagine that this new character, detective Kay Hunter, who was haunting my every waking moment would have such a profound effect on everything I do.”

FIRST LINE FROM THE BOOK

“The crows should have alerted him. Ducking and wheeling across a bleak late spring sky, the birds cawed and cackled as they swooped upon the muddy undulating landscape before rising to the air once more.”

MEMORABLE LINES 

“Adam was right, the first few hours of any major crime investigation were the most important, but not always the most fruitful.”

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“Kay didn’t know how Lucas coped but she was glad that he did. So often, her investigation could hinge on the information the pathologist gleaned from the unfortunate souls that found themselves in his company.”

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“‘How’re you finding major crimes then?’ Laura exhaled. ‘If I said I was loving it, it’d sound really crass, wouldn’t it?’ ‘But all of us would understand. It’s what keeps us going. Kay always says it’s about justice. Justice for the victim, and justice for whoever is left behind. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.'”

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“Hunger beats solidarity most of the time in my experience.”

REVIEW

“The ‘murder’ of crows should have alerted him.”

OK! So first off, I need to get the apologies to author Rachel Amphlett, consigned to paper and off my conscience. I have been an avid follower of Rachel’s work since the beginning of the Kay Hunter series and although I have promoted and featured all of the previous eight books, I have never actually made time to review a single one of them, and for that I am truly sorry!

I only say this now, because it was with a little trepidation that I accepted a spot on the Blog Tour for Turn To Dust, as a review feature only, fearing that the book may not work well as a stand alone story in such an advanced series and I may therefore not give a review due justice.

HOWEVER, I need not have worried, as this one was a brilliant stand alone story, which I devoured in pretty record time for me. Yes, there were obviously the faintest rumblings of a personal backstory for Kay, but it was totally non obtrusive and I didn’t need to know anything about it, to appreciate this as an excellent crime thriller / police procedural.

Rachel hit the spot with an amazing, on-trend, multi aspect storyline, which had a suspenseful plot, good character development, with a strong emphasis on realistic police procedurals and an ending which tied up all the loose ends nicely!

By about half way through the story, I began to have my suspicions about the crime scene and the identity of the culprit, which had me turning the pages ever faster, so that I could see if I was right! I was willing Kay’s team to catch up with my thinking and the longer it took them, the more convinced I became that I had fallen for a red herring!

Ah! eventually we were all reading off the same page, although it turns out I was only partially correct in my deductions, as the whole story, when it was finally uncovered, was much more depraved, disgusting and terrible, than I could ever possibly have imagined.

It is not often that written details of a police investigation can capture my imagination in quite the same way as if I had watched it on the small screen. However such was the visual and descriptive quality of the narrative and dialogue, I could easily imagine myself in the thick of things in the incident room, listening in on one of Kay’s team briefings and being given my next assignment in the investigation, or being included in the office banter. Every step of the investigation was documented in the text of the story, in exactly the same way as a real investigation would be, including the very gory forensic and scenes of crime details, which were rich in detail, with great emphasis on authenticity.

References to the plight of the homeless communities, which focussed more specifically on ex- services personnel, were documented sympathetically, clearly highlighting the vulnerability of such disadvantaged communities, at the hands of unscrupulous organisations and gangs.

There were the obvious rivalries between the investigating team, although they never threatened to disrupt the smooth execution of the investigation and the common goal of finding justice for the victims. Kay is an excellent leader and a great believer in collaborative thinking. She values her team, always trying to keep them motivated when there are the inevitable setbacks and dead ends, and they appear to work well together. She has taken the time and trouble to get to know all their individual strengths and weaknesses, but is not afraid to learn from any mistakes in judgement she might make, in allowing them to use their own initiative and to back their own hunches. Likewise, her relationship with her own line manager is frank and open, with her not being afraid to seek help and accept advice when she needs to, although she is also prepared to stand her ground and fight her corner, if she feels she is not being heard, or given the backing for her decisions she thinks she deserves.

I was getting the vibes that Kay and her partner Adam, (who is a vet) may have had some past history in their relationship, as seems to be the case with so many fictional detectives, however they seem to be very supportive of one another now, each knowing when the other has had a tough day and knowing when to listen and not to talk and judge.

Rachel introduced us to some brilliantly choreographed human traffickers, who you just couldn’t do anything else but despise, either for the sheer callousness of their behaviour, or perversely in others, their innate weakness in not stopping or preventing the atrocities and allowing them to continue unabated. A disturbing, yet compelling insight and social commentary, into the true depths of man’s inhumanity to man.

I was totally invested in all the characters, particularly Kay’s team, so it’s a real shame that they will be facing slight upheaval now, as one of their number is moving on to pastures new, with a well deserved promotion. However, there is new blood waiting in the wings and she seems to fit in just fine, so all should be good for book #10

Please tell me there is going to be a book #10 ??

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A complimentary download of this book, was kindly made available by Book On The Bright Side and supplied by Book Funnel

Any thoughts or comments are my own personal opinion and I am in no way being monetarily compensated for this, or any other article which promotes this book or its author.

I personally do not agree with ‘rating’ a book, as the overall experience is all a matter of personal taste, which varies from reader to reader. However some review sites do demand a rating value, so when this review is posted to such a site, it will attract a well deserved 4 out of 5 stars!

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