Today I’m thrilled to be hosting a tour stop on the LOVE LIKE BLOOD blog tour for Mark Billingham’s latest book in the Tom Thorne series.

LOVE LIKE BLOOD is out in hardback on 1^st June 2017, but I’ve got one copy to giveaway! To be in with a chance to win it, tweet the link to this review on Twitter and include @crimethrillgirl in the tweet, or retweet one of my tweets about it [see end of this post for the T&Cs].

So, to the review…

What the blurb says: “As DI Nicola Tanner investigates what appears to be a series of organised killings, her partner Susan is brutally murdered, leaving the detective bereft and vengeful. Taken off the case, Tanner enlists the help of DI Tom Thorne to pursue a pair of ruthless killers and the broker handing out the deadly contracts. As the killers target their latest victim, Thorne takes the biggest risk of his career and is drawn into a horrifying and disturbing world in which families will do anything to protect their honour.”

Wow, this is one hell of a great read…

DI Nicola Tanner wants justice. She wants justice for the young murder victims in the cases she’s been working that she believes to be honour killings carried out by professional killers, and she wants justice for the horrific murder of her partner, Susan.

Grieving, yet utterly focused and determined, Tanner makes it her mission to enlist DI Tom Thorne to help her investigate the plausibility of her hypothesis, something that it seems everyone – both the Honour Crimes Unit and the community – are unwilling to consider.

But Tom Thorne is never one to shy away from difficult cases or from doing things that might ruffle other people’s feathers, and with a small amount of persuasion he agrees to help Tanner investigate.

Tanner and Thorne make a great crime solving duo. Tanner is driven and focused, all business, not one for small talk and niceties; but her passion for justice and her dogged determination to get to the truth no matter what the danger might be makes her a compelling character that I was rooting for to succeed.

Street-wise, country music loving, DI Tom Thorne has a family now with Helen and her young son Alfie. As he digs deeper into the cases that Tanner believes are connected, and some members of the religious communities the victims are from become increasingly hostile, he starts to worry about all that he has and all that he could lose. As Tanner and Thorne get closer to discovering the truth, the tension ratchets ever higher all the way to the dramatic, breath-taking climax and the shocking twist at the end.

This is a book with a strong theme of social justice. It explores a community divided in views, hate crime, honour killings, generational differences, religious tradition, political sensitivities and gives the strong message: whatever it’s dressed up as, murder is still murder.

LOVE LIKE BLOOD is a disturbing, heart-breaking, and utterly compelling crime thriller crafted by a writer at the top of his game. An absolute must-read for all fans of crime fiction, and my top read of 2017 so far.

LOVE LIKE BLOOD is out this week. You can pre-order it from Amazon here and from Waterstones here

To find out more about Mark Billingham visit his website at www.markbillingham.com and be sure to follow him on Twitter @MarkBillingham

** The giveaway closes at 9pm on Tuesday 30^th May** Rules
 (1) One entry per person (2) The winners will be drawn at random (3) No cash alternative (4) The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.