The Brutal Tide by Kate Rhodes
REVENGE
DI Ben Kitto made many enemies in his time working as an undercover officer for the Met police, none more ruthless and calculating than gang leader Craig Travis.
IS WORTH
Travis has longed to make Kitto pay for his role in getting him convicted – and that day has finally arrived. Now, a dark and twisted killer is heading for the Scilly Isles, one who has waited a long time for revenge.
WAITING FOR . . .
With Kitto busy investigating the discovery of a body on the islands and distracted by the imminent arrival of his first child, his defences are down. He has so much to lose.
And Travis will stop at nothing to take it all from him.
About the author
Kate Rhodes is a bestselling British crime writer. Her latest books are the acclaimed ISLES OF SCILLY MYSTERIES, which have been optioned for TV. Kate has been passionate about the islands since holidaying there as a child, and still returns regularly to research her books. Kate's books have been nominated for the Crime Novel of the Year award, and the Library Dagger award.
Kate was born in south London, but now lives in Cambridge with her husband. She did a wide range of jobs including working in bars, being a theatre usherette, and teaching at a liberal arts college in Florida, before focusing on her writing. She works part-time as a Creative Writing Fellow at Cambridge University.
Review
‘The Brutal Tide’ is a gripping thriller, packed full of rich details, brilliant characters and bags of tension! This is the sixth book in the Ben Kitto series but this can be easily read as a standalone, however, I do recommend reading the whole series as they are fabulous reads! What I love about this series is its brilliant sense of location, the Isles of Scilly. It's clear that the author knows the islands like the back of her hand and loves them intensely. Plus, it's pretty obvious that she does bags of research as well which adds to the location, but also the overall authentic feel to these books.
What do you do when your past comes back to haunt you? Well, if you are Ben Kitto you put your hand in the sand and try to forget about it! Never a man for emotions so when he is informed that gang leader Craig Travis is making a play for all the people who put him in jail, he shrugs it off and believes it won't touch him. He is safe on the islands, isn't he?! But with Nina about to give birth to their first child they need to be prepared. I thoroughly enjoyed this section of the narrative as it set an omniscient feeling throughout the book. Although, we as readers kind of know what's going to happen, at least in theory, I love when an author does this as I feel it really ramps up the tension as you know there is going to be a huge showdown at some point! There were points during this book that I was internally shouting at Ben’s naivety and even agreed with his boss Maldon for once! Ben Kitto is a great protagonist and it was lovely to see him try and open up to Nina and also prepare for being a father! Big changes are coming for him and he has to accept the challenge. Of course, we lovers of this series know he will do it!
This outing was packed full of action as well as the ramifications of his past, Ben has to deal with the bones of a victim being found at a building site on Bryher, the small island he calls home. It made for a compelling read as you were jumping from story to story and it allowed the reader to feel the pressure Ben was under towards the later section of the book. I flew through the book in a day and I'm already looking forward to picking up the next in the series. I was a latercomer to this series but it's now an auto-buy series for me as I love it!
Let me know if you pick this one up!
