February 26, 2018
Set in London, British author Clarke’s exciting debut and series launch boasts a terrific premise: a serial killer targets trolls on the internet and then develops an ever-growing Twitter following because of the publicity surrounding the murders. The first to figure out what’s going on is Freddie Venten, a part-time journalist and full-time barista, who happens into the investigation of the first murder through a chance encounter with a childhood friend, Nasreen Cudmore, now a police sergeant. Freddie nearly compromises the case and Nasreen’s career by interfering. Making matters worse, the two had a falling-out as teenagers over a mysterious incident, which adds a layer of tension in the incident room when Freddie joins the team as the social media adviser. She’s needed because the police turn out to be hapless at social media and in making connections between what happens there and the murders—a bit too hapless to be plausible. Freddie’s too-frequent explanations of Twitter and social media are made up for by a riveting finale that pays homage to Agatha Christie. Readers will look forward to Freddie and Nasreen’s further adventures.
February 15, 2018
Clarke's debut thriller reunites two once-inseparable schoolmates just in time to tackle a nasty online serial killer and each other.Freddie Venton needs that extra something, that unique angle that will make her unpaid posts for London's The Family Paper stand out so she can earn enough to quit her job as an Espress-oh barista. So moments after spotting her old buddy Nasreen Cudmore, now a police sergeant, Freddie follows her to a crime scene, dons plastic overalls and enters the house on Blackbird Road to find bank manager Alun Harding dead, his throat cut as he sat at his computer busily masturbating. Her impromptu masquerade quickly detected, Freddie would face serious charges if Superintendent Gray, who's in charge of the case, weren't so impressed by her quick-witted ability to link the crime to a shadowy online presence calling himself @Apollyon that he offers her--well, blackmails her into--the job of social media adviser to the investigating team. Although Nas recoils from Freddie's unwanted intervention, and her boss, DCI Edwin Moast, takes an instant dislike to Freddie, the team really needs her because they've inadvertently made @Apollyon's Twitter feed so identifiable that his followers soon number in the tens of thousands. Freddie, feeling that "it wasn't so much that she'd tasted death but that it had tasted her," is so desperate to prevent the Hashtag Murderer from striking again that she follows every possible lead in the hope of identifying his next victim. Her instincts are on the money, but she's still too late to prevent another murder, and then another. Where will it all end? Not with this first installment, that's for sure.Clarke makes it clear that this stylish, fast-paced case for her good-girl cop and her bad-girl reporter is only the beginning of a new series; fans who miss the tart noir cycle are bound to enjoy it.
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