It’s a great pleasure to be todays stop for the Blog Tour of Venom by Stewart Giles. I highly recommend you read this book. It’s a great read!!

VENOM, Detective Jason Smith book 9

From #1 best-selling author: Stewart Giles comes a new addition to the popular Detective Jason Smith series.

Still recovering from an accident, DS Jason Smith receives a strange phone call: ‘I want to live.’ The number is unknown, and Jason puts it down to a hoax call. While doing a favour for DCI Chalmers the phone call suddenly begins to make sense and Jason is once again on the trail of a psychopath.

Can Smith stop this maniac before more people die? Who is it and why does he have Smith’s number? As the team struggle to find some kind of a lead Jason realises that it may not be his own life in danger this time but he is in danger of losing someone else he cares about.

This is a unique story that has a steadily increasing pace that continues to deliver all the way to the very last page.

THE SETTING
At the confluence of the River Ouse and Foss, York is the traditional county town of the historic county of Yorkshire. York Minster and a variety of cultural and sporting activities make it a popular tourist destination.

THE DETECTIVE
DS Jason Smith is an Australian who was sent to York to live with his Grandmother when his sister disappeared from a beach. He has suffered many losses in his short life and is now a dedicated detective. He is a bit of a loose cannon he has his own way of doing things that doesn’t always mean following orders and procedures. However, he does get results.

BOOKS BY STEWART GILES

DS JASON SMITH SERIES
Book 0.5-Phobia
Book 1-Smith
Book 2-Boomerang
Book 3-Ladybird
Book 4-Occam’s Razor
Book 5-Harlequin
Book 6-Selene
Book 7-Horsemen
Book 8-Unworthy

Book 9 – Venom

DC HARRIET TAYLOR SERIES
Book 1-The Beekeeper
Book 2-The Perfect Murder
Book 3-The Backpacker

DS JASON SMITH &DC HARRIET TAYLOR SERIES
Book 1 – The Enigma

Book 2 – Dropzone

PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS

Miranda

Miranda sequel coming soon
Stewart Giles – Author Bio

After reading English at 3 Universities and graduating from none of them, I set off traveling around the world with my wife, Ann, finally settling in South Africa, where we still live.

In 2014 Ann dropped a rather large speaker on my head and I came up with the idea for a detective series. DS Jason Smith was born. Smith, the first in the series was finished a few months later.

3 years and 8 DS Smith books later, Joffe Books wondered if I would be interested in working with them. As a self-published author, I agreed. However, we decided on a new series – the DC Harriet Taylor Cornwall series.

The Beekeeper was published and soon hit the number one spot in Australia. The second in the series, The Perfect Murder did just as well.

I continued to self-publish the Smith series and Unworthy hit the shelves in 2018 with amazing results. I therefore made the decision to self-publish The Backpacker which is book 3 in the Detective Harriet Taylor series which was published in July 2018.

After The Backpacker I had an idea for a totally new start to a series – a collaboration between the Smith and Harriet thrillers and The Enigma was born. It brings together the broody, enigmatic Jason Smith and the more level-headed Harriet Taylor.

Miranda is something totally different. A stand-alone psychological thriller, it is a real departure from anything else I’ve written before.

Dropzone, book 2 in the Smith/Harriet series is now available and Venom, book 9 in the Smith series will be released in July 2019. I have plenty more books planned to include, by popular request, a sequel to Miranda.

My 5-Star Review of Venom

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 5-bright, shining stars out of 5

We see a bit of a different side of DS Smith in this book. While I’ve seen him be upset about the cases in other books, I don’t remember him being as upset as he was in this book. He will have to make sure that he can figure this one out quickly as there is a lot at stake in this case. He takes his cases very personally, but this one really did him in.

Once again DS Smith is involved in a heinous case where he has to follow the clues, of which there are very few. He will dig very deep in this case to find the person responsible for the brutal killings that are happening in DS Smith’s town.

I loved this story and the characters are always so great to read. I enjoy the way that the characters work together to get the results needed to solve the case. The depth the detectives will go to get results is always interesting to me. I enjoy a good sleuth story and this one did not disappoint. I thought I had the criminal sorted out but then I second guessed myself only to find out that I was spot on.

My favorite DS Smith book by far. This book was full of suspense and a twist, as well as gave me the creeps, but I loved it. I give this book 5-bright, shining stars and cannot recommend it enough to readers who enjoy suspense-filled murder mysteries, with a group of detectives who work tirelessly to solve a case.

I am pleased to be the first stop on the Tour for Best Served Cold. This was an interesting read, and it was my first read of Pat Adams-Wright. A story of murder, psychological thriller, and twists and turns.

Best Served Cold

Crime Fiction

Synopsis

DCI Kirsty Savidge and her team (MCTF – Major Crimes Task Force) are tasked with solving the murder of Avril Webb, the third member of a vicious, bullying school gang from twenty-five years ago, to be killed in a matter of weeks. Although two previous deaths are brought to her attention by pathologist Dr Benedict Aldredge (Benny), they have been ruled a drowning and a gang-related murder in another district. Once Kirsty is aware of them, her detective instincts begin to kick-in, but because of the different Modi Operandi, she’s not sure she’ll be able to convince her superior Chief Superintendent Alison Fry, of a connection. The two women have history and cooperation is rarely a given. However, during the interviews into Avril’s death the remaining members of the gang are adamant about a link between the deaths and press Kirsty to investigate further. This gives Kirsty a legitimate reason to ask for the other two cases to be reviewed although none of those in the higher echelons would want to hear the term ‘serial killer’.

Another murder occurs quite soon, again with a different MO. At the same time, Kirsty becomes aware she’s had an intruder in her home, but she and DS Danny Hewitt decide to put off any investigation until the current case is finished. Also, Chief Superintendent Fry appears to be having some personal problems when Kirsty spots her wrist wrapped in bandages and bruising on her neck. The inclement weather is also having an effect on the investigation, as some people are having to work from home, including Savidge and Fry, who finds herself stranded at Kirsty’s cottage because of the heavy snowfall. Fry brought news Kirsty could proceed with linking all the cases. Members of the now covert group (nobody is aware in the present that these people are still linked and running false businesses for their leader, Chris Shaw), are now beginning to take care of their own security turning down protective custody. The police become suspicious.

Throughout, there is a running commentary from the murderer, about his methods and reasoning. Kirsty has her suspicions and is convinced one of the gang members is carrying out the murders. Only when information from those badly bullied at school does the method of the killings fall into place. Background information on two of suspects is proving illusive. A failed copy-cat attack narrows Kirsty’s choice to one and covert surveillance is set-up. At the time of Avril’s funeral the next day, it’s revealed the man watching the suspect has been murdered and the suspect has disappeared. He’s gone to Plan B – murdering the rest of the gang at the funeral. He kills two more using sniper-fire, then escapes. At the airport he is apprehended and held at gunpoint by two armed response officers, but is then shot himself when one officer mistakes a remote-control for the handle of a gun. The suspect’s lap-top reveals all, in the form of two books so all questions can be answered at a meal supplied by the Chief Superintendent. At the end of the book we are left wondering whose Kirsty’s intruder was and also who had leaked information to allow a copy-cat attack.

 Pat Adams-Wright Author Bio

Pat Adams-Wright was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, UK, on the 15th October 1954, in Wellesley Barracks, to a sergeant major father and a working mother. Teacher trained in Liverpool, she actually taught very little during the austere period for practical subjects, doing any work she could find to keep the wolf from the door. However, this did provide plenty of experience and writing material. Finally settled into a teaching job, disaster struck after an accident left her disabled. After many years of using writing to distract her from pain, she successfully completed her debut novel, Run, which was published on the 18th April, 2015.

LINKS

Website: https://pat-adams-wright-author.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/patricia.adamswright.5

Twitter: @WritePAW

My Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4 out of 5 stars

A woman is murdered in her own garage upon arriving home from a night out with friends. The murderer has posed her body suggestively and it’s not his first murder. As DCI Kirsty Savidge and her team are investigating this murder a man is murder. These two victims are link in their past. As the investigation goes on, DCI Savidge is informed that there were two other murders recently of two men who are of the same age as these two victims. Do they have a serial killer on their hands in Halifax?

I liked the plot of the story and the characters worked very well together. I enjoyed the suspense and the unfolding of the story and the crime. It was perfectly paced and the way that the plot unfolded and showed who the murderer was kept me wondering until almost the end of the book. I think I figured it out just before DCI Savidge.

I give this story a 4-star review and recommend it to readers who like psychological thrillers, police procedural and stories with twists.