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The Winter Killer: The new and most chilling book yet in the gripping British detective crime fiction series you have to read this Christmas: Book 3 (DI James Walker series)

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Rachel was maid of honour at her sister’s wedding and disappeared after the Wedding Breakfast and before she had made her planned speech. Inevitably, her sister is fuming, but when nobody can find Rachel, everyone soon realises that something is very very wrong. Before the end of the night, the lake is being searched for a dead body. Who would do such a thing on someone’s wedding day? DI James Walker will certainly find out. With the forecast for a blizzard looming over Cumbria, the report that 4 trail hunters are missing raises concerns and makes it more difficult for the search and rescue teams to work. A fast-paced gripping read with plenty of twists and turns. This series just gets better and better!' NetGalley reviewer, Good points: I enjoyed the crime element of this book and the ever changing plot and new developments. It certainly keeps you guessing. The plot was really gripping and interesting and unusual. I haven't read a thriller based around a wedding before. The Winter Killer is the 3rd in the DI James Walker series. At a New Year's Eve wedding the sister of the bride has gone missing and all available police are called to search the grounds of the hotel, the scene of the wedding. When her body is discovered, it is up to the team to find out how, why and who killed her.

Full of twists and turns with everyone a suspect, the story takes an interesting look at family dynamics along with the complexities and intricacies of relationships between friends and lovers. Blame and guilt emerge as key issues in the search for the killer with resentments and distrust at the forefront. I loved every paragraph, every sentence and every word of this masterpiece! I was totally hooked ’ NetGalley reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ When one of DI Walker’s team is attending a wedding and one of the guest goes missing he is called in to handle the case. What starts as a simply missing person soon turns into a murder enquiry with many suspects. Normally the 12 days of Christmas are seen as a season of joy and goodwill. However James Walker’s promotion to DCI has failed to remove the Xmas jinx on the team and this investigation will see his overtime budget stretched as the team work long hours over the holiday period.The side characters are a mix of good and bad and unreliable ones. They made the whole puzzle much more interesting and added character to the story. Four friends fail to return home after a trail hike in the Lake District on Christmas Eve. As the weather closes in, DCI James Walker and his team work with the Mountain Rescue teams to find them. It’s a race against time to trace the men before harsh winter weather arrives.

Following the ceremony, Libby notices that Rachel, her sister and maid of honour, has vanished into thin air. Shortly before her disappearance Jessica saw Rachel and a man storm out of her room in a heated argument. Afterwards Rachel tried to drown her sorrows in alcohol and was lastseen in the garden with her sister and an ex-boyfriend, Ethan Prescott. I loved every paragraph, every sentence and every word of this masterpiece! I was totally hooked' NetGalley reviewer,

I would definitely still recommend this book, especially if you want an easy thriller to read over the colder months. But if Pine intends to write a fourth book, I just hope he gets a little more daring. When four trail hunters go missing in the fells of Cumbria on Christmas Eve, the race is on to find them before nightfall – when the temperature plummets. Based in Kendal, forty-one-year-old DI James Walker is on his Christmas and New Year Break in the sleepy village of Kirkby Abbey, Cumbria but it comes to a swift close when he takes a call from his detective constable informing him there is a matter needing his attention at The Fells Hotel, Cumbria involving new bride-to-be, Libby Elliott, who is marrying Greg Murphy. DC Jessica Abbott is the fiancée of the groom's good golfing friend, Sean and she is looking forward to meeting the happy couple. The couple marries but directly afterward, the bride's sister, Rachel is nowhere to be found, however, items belonging to Rachel are found by the nearby jetty on Lake Windermere which is overlooked by the hotel.

Special thanks to NetGalley, HarperCollins UK Audio, Avon, and the editorial team for giving me the opportunity to review the ARC in audiobook format and to you, my reader, for taking the time to read this honest personal book review. As James as his team begin to investigate it doesn’t take long for them to realise that the home of one of the hunters has been trashed and the word murders is written on the wall. To James and his team it looks as though it could be the work of an anti-hunting party. The Winter Killer is my first introduction to author Alex Pine. But it won't be my last. As this was such an enjoyable police procedural. That grabbed me from the start and never let go, and honestly, I felt like I was in the middle of a real-life investigation as the pace of it was so relentless. For DCI Walker and his team, Christmas has come to be a much disliked time. Having solved a number of cases around this time over the past few years, they shouldn’t be surprised when yet another Christmas Eve is marred by a very odd case. This is a crime thriller peppered with surprises, the first being when the crime team find the farmhouse of one of the missing men trashed, and the windows of the vehicles belonging to all four in the group smashed. Not long afterwards the first body is discovered. With a bullet hole in the chest, the police now have a murder investigation on their hands. Discovering the whereabouts of the other three men becomes even more urgent.DCI Walker continues to shine as a compelling character, possessing the invaluable qualities of level-headedness and composure, especially in the face of crisis. These attributes contribute significantly to his appeal and the narrative's coherence. But while The Winter Killer is a highly enjoyable book, what's let me down is the title, as it always annoys me when a thriller is promoted as being more sinister than it actually is. Because for me, there definitely wasn't enough winter or killing. I haven’t been overly enthusiastic about this series so far, but I think that The Night Before Christmas is the best so far. The premise is intriguing, not just for the disappearance but for what might or might not be related events. I found it interesting enough to want to know what happened and why.

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