It Was Her by Mark Hill

Hello and welcome to the first stop on the blog tour for Mark Hill's second novel 'It Was Her'. 

The First thing you need to know is that this is the second story featuring DI Ray Drake, a rather dark and, I guess, complicated character, so reading the first in the series, 'His First Lie' (previously known as The Two O'clock Boy*) will make events at the beginning of IWH a lot clearer.

Anyway, to the book in hand.

 IWH begins in flashback with a tragedy which may or may not have been an accident and is cut back to at various points in the narrative as the mystery of just what happened unravels.

In the present day Drake and his colleague, DS Flick Crowley, have their own mystery to solve - homes in supposedly safe neighbourhoods are being broken into and lived in while the owners are elsewhere and more often than not of late, people are ending up dead. How this ties to the events in the other story strand certainly makes for an interesting and intriguing read (I got through it in 2 1/2 days) that will have you changing your mind as to 'whodunnit'. Even after finishing the book I still find myself unsure - and that, for me, is a sign of a good tale and a good author.

Where Mark Hill really excels, in my opinion, is with his lead characters. With what happened at the end that 'His First Lie' things are a little edgy between Drake and Crowley. In that book Drake had a dark secret but now Crowley is a party to that secret and what she knows could ruin both their careers. The early tension is really ratcheted up and even though you sort of know they'll sort things out (that's not really a spoiler, it is a series after all) Hill still manages to leave you wondering and turning page after page.

As with his previous novel Hill leads you down dark and dangerous paths but you know what? You're glad he does and I hope he will continue to do so for a long time to come. He's only two books into his crime writing career but he's already up there with the big players

5/5 stars

Below are the rest of the dates and sites for this blog tour, please pop in and have a look

*also reviewed on this blog site