The Darkness Within by Graeme Hampton Blog Tour & Review

 

Hi there! I am absolutely thrilled to welcome you today to my blog for my stop in the tour for The Darkness Within by Graeme Hampton. If you haven't been here, please do look around cos I like to read and review crime novels. 

I haven't heard of Hampton before, but when I read the synopsis of the book I was intrigued so jumped at the chance to join this tour. Having read the book, I bought each of the previous ones in the series because I liked the detectives a lot and wanted to see what else they've done. I'll keep a look out for future books too. This book can be read a standalone, though - there's not much looking back over previous cases. 

Matt Denning is our DI, and he's in his thirties and is a graduate who has been fast tracked through the police to his current role. He is married to Sarah, who is an investment banker. He is a DI in the Metropolitan Police. One of his underlings is Molly Fisher, who I think is a DC. The two of them are the main characters, but there are of course other detectives around. Plus there's a lot of friction between Denning and his superiors, which I liked. 

So the story. First of all, a man is found murdered in a grotty flat on a run down estate. It turns out he is an ex copper who was estranged from his family. Then, a man is found badly beaten up outside his house and is identified as mild mannered academic Dr Cairns. It soon becomes clear that the man lying in the bed is not him - so who's posing as Cairns? Are the attack and the murder linked, and how does career criminal made good Alfie Kane factor into this? 

I liked the story a lot, I thought it was compelling and I wanted both Denning and Molly to succeed. I liked the look back into historic cases; it seems like this is something that is often in the news and which some crime writers have started to use in their books. Like I said, I liked this book enough to buy the others; this is a writer I'll be watching!