REVIEW: Watch Over You by M.J. Ford

Watch Over You (DS Josie Masters #3) by M.J. Ford

Genre: Crime fiction, Crime thriller, Police procedural

Read: 6th June 2021

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Published: 9th July 2020

★★★ 3 stars

DESCRIPTION:

The hunt is on. And this time, it’s personal…

When DS Josie Masters is called out to a house in North Oxford to investigate a serious incident, things take a personal turn. The body is Harry’s – her friend and former colleague.

Josie thought Harry lived alone, but evidence suggests he’d had a lodger – a young woman who has fled the scene.

And as more killings stun Oxford, the police discover the picture is more complicated than it appeared.

The young woman is on the run, and someone is following her – leaving a stack of bodies in their wake…

MY REVIEW:

Firstly, I didn't know this book was part of a series when requesting it so therefore I probably didn't enjoy it as much has I read the previous two first. I did find it a little slow to begin with and the pace was sporadic throughout and I admit I did feel it dragging at times.

DS Jo Masters (I had to chuckle at sharing her name with another DS Jo Masters previously from "The Bill") has just returned to work after six months maternity leave, despite having to surgically remove herself from 6 month old Theo to do so. She knows she will miss him but feels she is ready to return to work. She was wrong.

Her first day back she responds to an emergency call upon hearing over her radio about a disturbance at her friend and former policeman Harry Ferman. When she arrives, he is unresponsive and covered in blood from a head wound inflicted with a poker laying nearby. Who would do this to Harry? And did his message on her phone have anything to do with what lead someone to attack him? A search of the premises show a young blonde woman has been staying with him but Jo knew nothing of the arrangement. So where is the woman now? And did she have something to do with his attack?

Sadly Harry is pronounced dead shortly after paramedics arrive on scene despite her best efforts to keep him alive through CPR. This is now a murder enquiry and Jo's superior DCI Andy Carrick assigns her as SIO of the investigation.

As an aside, there had been a fatal shooting prior to Jo's return and the whereabouts of a person of interest who fled the scene has been located in a Cotswold village a short distance away. Jo accompanies two of her colleagues, DS George "Dimi" Dimitriou and DC Alice Reeve, to the address where something far more sinister awaits them. The bodies of an affluent couple and prominent  members of the village and local church, Dr and Mr Bailey, in the cellar of their home. A search of the premises shows the crime scene to have been in the master bedroom upstairs where signs of forced entry were visible. Not to mention the dead rodents in the summer house in the back garden who had subsequently died of an overdose of whatever illicit drug had been stored there.

Jo and her team narrow down the couple's two children, Greg and Megan Bailey, as two persons of interest and set to ascertaining their whereabouts. A photo of the blonde Megan shows the possibility that she may have been the young woman staying with Harry and in that case, she is just 16 years old. So what has she got to do with Harry and how is it linked the fatal shooting of Xan Do earlier in the week?

What then ensues is an investigation that leads to more questions and complexities that the team must work tirelessly to unravel. A shooting in a cafe and a car jacking lead them to their prime suspect...but just exactly who is he? And what does he want with Megan Bailey?

While the plot was somewhat gritty and at times graphic, there was a part of me that found it all a little reminiscent of Morse with the mention of the various places around Oxford that continually popped up Colin Dexter's novels of the irascible detective. Woodstock, St Aldates, Banbury, Wolvercote, Jericho as well as the Radcliffe Infirmary. But there, the similarity ends of course as this was a crime on a whole different level than the cosy-type of academia murders that frequented Morse. This was more gung-ho.

I couldn't make up my mind whether I liked WATCH OVER ME or not. The pace was a little slow and despite picking up, it did taper off again here and there. The procedural story, as well as that following Josie's personal life, was interspersed with the preceding thoughts and actions of someone called James. But who he is and what his involvement becomes clearer as the story progresses. I admit to figuring out who he was somewhat early but exactly why was a puzzle that slowly unravelled. And for me, it kind of ended up a bit of an anti climax. The final chapters were spent in a pursuit that ended with nothing really unexpected by its conclusion.

WATCH OVER ME was a gripping read to an extent and I enjoyed Jo's gallows humour at the beginning with the child services visit. But having not read the other two books to appreciate the series more, I doubt I will revisit.

I would like to thank #MJFord, #Netgalley and #AvonBooks for an ARC of #WatchOverYou in exchange for an honest review.

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Matthew (M.J.) Ford is a British mystery author from the North of England that is best known for his series of novels featuring Detective Jo Masters. Ford was born in 1980 and as a teenager, he went to Oxford University from where he studied English and the Classics. He has worked as an editor and writer of children’s fiction for many years. His debut novel, Hold My Hand, was published in 2018. Watch Over You is his third crime book.

Matthew lives with his wife and family on the edge of the Peak District in the north of England.

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