“DI Duncan Waddell has big problems. He’s borderline diabetic, his boss thinks he’s in the Army and the paperwork is piling up faster than the underwear at a porn shoot. The last thing he needs is the country’s biggest case to land on his lap.

Three women have gone missing in the city he’s fast coming to despise, victims of the GLASGOW GRABBER as their assailant has been dubbed by local hack and all round pain in the backside, Catriona Hastie.

Shelley Craig is the Grabber’s latest victim, snatched as she and her boyfriend took a shortcut through Glasgow city centre. And she’ll do anything to make it home.

Handling this baffling case is stressful enough without Waddell’s pal DC Stevie Campbell, who’s in a coma after being attacked by a suspect, starting to talk to him. Trouble is, only Waddell can hear him.”

I am delighted to welcome you to my stop on the Vile City blog tour.  Vile City is the latest release from award-winning crime write, Jennifer Lee Thomson and was publishing by Caffeine Nights Publishing in May 2017.

I do love a dark crime novel and this is probably one of the darkest I’ve read in a while. The themes in this book certainly aren’t for the faint hearted and at times made even me, Mrs Iron Stomach, a little queasy.  DI Duncan Waddell is just perfect in my eyes.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading about this long-in-the-tooth, ever so slightly bumbling detective and his new overly keen DC, Brian McKeith.  What I didn’t really get, and I think this is just me, is why DC Stevie Campbell is such a big part of the setup.  I mean, the series is titled ‘Detective in a Coma’.  The detective in the coma is DC Stevie Campbell, who until recently was DI Waddell’s right hand man but as the result of a bottling is now comatose in the local hospital.  Had Waddell experienced some brilliant insight whilst sitting with his comatose colleague, or in the moments when Waddell thinks Stevie is conscious, had he shared his thoughts which then led to the case being solved, I could have seen more of a connection.  But Stevie doesn’t offer any brilliant insights and Waddell doesn’t have any case changing ideas whilst sitting with Stevie.  Maybe there is more to come, maybe it’s just me.

There is a lot going on in this book and at times I did lose the thread a little.  There are many steps in the plot and some aspects felt they were there only to move the story along.  For example, Shelley Craig’s kidnap felt the first stepping stone albeit a rather large one.  Once this aspect of the case had been investigated, it wasn’t really mentioned or referred to again.  I don’t want to drop any spoilers here but I’m still not sure what the outcome was with the other two kidnapped woman.  Maybe all will become clear in the second book.

Would I recommend this book?  I would.  I really enjoyed Thomson’s investigative team, led by Waddell and featuring the ever so slightly annoying, McKeith.  I would be quite happy for Waddell to keep sleuthing alongside McKeith rather than bringing a conscious Stevie Campbell to the story, as they make an interesting pair and one I really warmed to (even though they didn’t really warm to each other!).  I also liked how wonderfully Scottish this novel is. Great story but I did feel a little dizzy in places.

Four out of five stars.

I chose to read and review Vile City.  The above review is my own unbiased opinion.

Vile City by Jennifer Lee Thomson was published in the UK by Caffeine Nights Publishing on 11th May 2017 and is available in paperback and eBook formats | amazon.co.uk | amazon.com | Waterstones | Goodreads |

Jennifer Lee Thomson is an award-winning crime writer who has been scribbling away all her life. She also writes non-fiction as Jennifer Thomson and fiction as Jenny Thomson.

This is her first book as Jennifer Lee Thomson in tribute to her late father who passed away after a long battle with cancer. Books 2 and 3 in the series are already written and she’s working on book 4.

Jennifer is an animal rights and human rights advocate and has a rescue dog.

She also writes the Crime File series of books as Jenny Thomson. Book 1, 2 and 3, are out now. They are in order, Hell to Pay, Throwaways and Don’t Come For Me and feature tough rape survivor Nancy Kerr and her ex-Special Forces boyfriend who fight crime together.

In her spare time, she plans how to survive the zombie apocalypse.

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