It wasn’t until I sat down to write this review that the full significance of the title of the fourth novel in Liz Mistry’s DI Gus McGuire series struck home.

Sadly, I can’t elaborate.

But DO read Uncommon Cruelty and find out.

And, if this multi-layered, multi-voiced crime procedural doesn’t keeping you guessing right to the end, I’ll eat my hat.

The dreadlocked McGuire isn’t a typical copper – he can’t stand the sight of blood for one thing, which is a bit of a handicap when he has to attend an autopsy.

And his sidekick DS Alice Cooper also defies stereotyping.

What the blurb says:

DI Gus McGuire and his team are called in to investigate the disappearance of a teenage boy after his parents return from a weekend away, to find their home trashed and their son missing.

But that is just the beginning.

As the investigation unfolds, Gus must discover what links a violent bikers’ gang, a Muslim youth group and a fundamentalist American based Christian church.

Alongside this, two cases from the past come back to haunt DI Gus McGuire and his DS, Alice Cooper.

Gus has a lot to juggle, but will he cope?

 

Between them they’re an engaging team, doggedly determined to find out just what happened when a teenage party went seriously wrong.

Set in Bradford in West Yorkshire and billed as gritty Northern noir this is a murder-cum-psychological thriller that also provides insights into what it means to be a teenager in one of Britain’s most multi-cultural cities.

Review by Sue Featherstone.

Available to buy on Amazon.