A Truth for a Truth (Detective Kate Young #4) by Carol Wyer
Genre: Crime thriller, Crime fiction
Read: 3rd April 2023
Published: 6th April 2023
★★★★ 4.5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
DI Kate Young’s team is hunting for a killer. What they don’t know…is that the killer is her.
DI Kate Young has known for years that her boss, Superintendent John Dickson, is a violent and evil man. But when she finally confronts him and accidentally shoots and kills him, she’s forced to cover her tracks before anyone can pin his death on her. With revelations about his corruption soon to become public knowledge, Kate sets up a trail of evidence to make it seem that Dickson has conveniently vanished…
But Kate knows the corruption doesn’t end with Dickson. As she heads up the team investigating his supposed disappearance, she also pursues other loose ends. Stanka, the sex worker who supplied the evidence against Dickson, leads her to crucial information on another corrupt officer, DI Harriet Khatri, and her dubious involvement with sex traffickers.
As the noose starts to tighten on Kate, she finds herself targeted by traffickers, the bent cops on her force and even her own team of detectives. Can she stay one step ahead of them all and bring Harriet to justice? Can she trust anyone around her? And can she possibly get away with murder?
MY THOUGHTS:
An eye for a cut for a life and now the truth...
After an edge-of-your-seat nail-biting end to book three, A TRUTH FOR A TRUTH begins with one hell of a bang...or the aftershocks of one, at least. It literally picks up exactly from where the previous left off...and I mean "literally". No pause, no breaks, no scene changes. We are thrust right back to where we were a year ago when "A Life for a Life" ended so abruptly on such a cliffhanger. In the same place at the same time directly in the aftermath. What follows is one hell of a cat-and-mouse game that will keep readers guessing as to how it will all unfold.
Kate Young has been struggling, both personally and professionally, since the untimely death of her husband Chris, which she has channelled into bringing down her corrupt boss, Superintendent John Dickson. But now she is going to be challenged even further in light of what she has done. And instead of Chris' voice guiding her conscience, she now has Dickson's sinister rumbles resounding in her head. What has she done? How can she get away with it?
Kate had gone to the reservoir to confront Dickson into admitting that he ordered the hit on her husband but, as smart and as quick witted as she is, Dickson is adept at corruption and keeping one step ahead of her. She may have gotten what she wanted but circumstances unfolded that saw her unwittingly shoot him in self defence. But who would believe her? There's no CCTV and nothing to back her up. The only piece of evidence that could have been of use lay in pieces beneath her feet.
As she stands beside the darkened reservoir, Kate watches the lone swan pass by oblivious to the scene around her. She feels like that swan. Drifting about without a mooring, without a mate. And whilst she may appear calm on the outside, beneath the surface she is paddling like crazy to keep herself afloat. Think, Kate, think! She makes a quick call and events are set in motion to eliminate any and all evidence. The plan she has is for the greater good. Kate vows to bring down the syndicate of which Dickson was not only a member but was also its head. And how to kill a snake? Cut off its head. But Kate knows that will not be enough to stop the syndicate. And if they knew that she had eliminated their head, they would be baying for her blood.
The following morning at the station, she is greeted with the front page news highlighting Dickson's corruption - just a part of the plan she set in motion before she met him the previous night. Her boss and mentor DCI William Chase, who is on the cusp of retirement, tasks her with investigating Dickson's disappearance working on the assumption that the superintendent got wind of today's paper and hightailed it to safety...until the dust settled perhaps. Of course Kate knew differently but she must remain poker-faced. Kate's investigation leads her to lock horns with DI Harriet Khatri whom Dickson had tasked with taking over her old team after Chris was murdered. The woman is not called "the ice queen" for nothing. Khatri is heading up a case involving people trafficking which is closely related to that of the Maddox Club murders, which Kate investigated and lead her to Dickson's corruption. Coincidence?
Throughout it all, Kate must maintain a level of professional propriety drawing on all her reserves to keep her mask from slipping. How can she do this and keep herself sane? Chris' guiding voice has been her conscience which she heard out of grief. Now Dickson's sneering voice has taken over speaks to her guilt but above all, she must not crumble. But is she strong enough to see this case through without falling apart? And how can she bring a killer to justice...when that killer is her?
This installment of the exciting Kate Young series took a dark and sinister turn as Kate found herself stepping over the line into the dark side. She wanted to bring Dickson to justice and have him answer for his crimes, not to kill him. And so Kate finds herself on the wrong side of the law whilst investigating the very crime she herself committed! This is not a spoiler. It's in the book description and the entirety of the story focus on it.
I have to say, I hated hearing Dickson's sneering voice at every turn. He features more here than he does in any other book just by haunting Kate with his snide comments. Admittedly, it does get very wearing listening to him go on an on at her all the time that I ended up just skimming his voice much of the time. I can't imagine how Kate must feel! It must seriously do her head in. But the purpose of this voice is to create provocation, leading to further situations. At the core of the story though is trust...or a lack thereof. Kate doesn't know who to trust and quite frankly, I don't blame her. Even at the end when one of the syndicate is revealed (to Kate), I still have some trouble believing their reasoning. And through events that subsequently unfolded, I wonder will we ever know for sure. Given that it's fiction, I'm sure Ms Wyer can orchestrate further events to reveal the truth in good time.
A TRUTH FOR A TRUTH is somewhat different in content and context. We know from the start who it is and why, while the rest is red herring for others to give Kate time to find what she's looking for. She hasn't yet gotten to the bottom of it but no doubt she will. Though I still found myself not quite trusting the events in the epilogue. While the whole time I was screaming at Kate to just jump on a plane and come to Sydney!!! Tilly has been begging her to visit...and now is the perfect time. She says she is...but does she really? Or will something come up in book 5 to stop her boarding the plane at the eleventh hour?
I must say, this whole book felt a little AC-12 and I kept waiting for Steve Arnott to turn up with Superintendent Hastings (and the wee donkey).
The plot is not the usual fast pace of Wyer's previous books but I guess that is because we know everything that's happening...or just about. But that's not to say it's without tension because oh my gosh the tension is so tight in places I thought I would snap! I did find it a little long and drawn out but that could also be because I've been sick and found it hard to concentrate so I've had to pace myself with the book over a couple of days. The ending is a little anti-climatic but that's OK...we've had some tense cliffhangers throughout this series, a nice sedate ending makes a change.
Overall, a very different but still exciting installment to the Kate Young series. I can't wait to see what happens next for Kate in book 5 "A Soul for a Soul" to be published February 2024.
I would like to thank #CarolWyer, #Netgalley, #AmazonPublishingUK and #ZoolooTours for an ARC of #ATruthForATruth in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
A move from humour to the 'dark side' in 2017, saw the introduction of popular DI Robyn Carter in Little Girl Lost and demonstrated that stand-up comedian Carol, had found her true niche.
To date, her crime novels have sold over 800,000 copies and been translated for various overseas markets.
The much-anticipated new series, featuring DI Kate Young, was published on 1st February 2021 with the first novel, An Eye For An Eye, a second, A Cut for a Cut, published on 24th June 2021 and a third A Life for a Life to be published 15th March 2022. An Eye for an Eye was chosen as a Kindle First Reads and became the #1 bestselling book on Amazon UK and Amazon Australia.
Carol has been interviewed on numerous radio shows discussing ''Irritable Male Syndrome' and 'Ageing Disgracefully' and on BBC Breakfast television. She has had articles published in national magazines 'Woman's Weekly', featured in 'Take A Break', 'Choice', 'Yours' and 'Woman's Own' magazines and the Huffington Post.
She currently lives on a windy hill in rural Staffordshire with her husband Mr Grumpy... who is very, very grumpy.
When she is not plotting devious murders, she can be found performing her comedy routine, Smile While You Still Have Teeth.
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