Cold Blood is the fifth book in the DCI Erika Foster series by Robert Bryndza. Erika Foster is a Slovakian emigré to Great Britain who lost her fellow police officer husband Mark Foster in a drug raid gone wrong a few years before the events of the first book, The Girl in the Ice. Erika is a very interesting character; she tends to be very blunt and impatient with police department politics. However, she is very dedicated to obtaining justice for the victims of crimes, especially murdered women.
In Cold Blood, the primary mystery is centered around trying to find out who has killed and dismembered two bodies, placed them in suitcases and dumped then into the Thames. Although the bodies were found two weeks apart, Erika is convinced they are related, even though one of them (the unidentified male) also had numerous small baggies of drugs in his stomach. This leads to tension with her boss who wants to move the case over to the narcotics team. Through a somewhat surprising failing by a longtime character in the series, Erika gets seriously injured and the investigation stalls soon after the second body is discovered.
Bryndza uses the now-familiar technique of showing us the story from the perspective of the perpetrators. This time the mystery is in the reader trying to figure out how and whether the perpetrators will fall out with each other as well as how long they will get away with their crimes.
Eventually, things come to a head (soon after Erika returns to duty following a third body found in a suitcase!) when the manhunt is on for the perpetrators and they attempt a spectacular crime to facilitate their escape. Needless to say, things don’t turn out how they expect.
Overall, I would say Cold Blood is one of the better entries in the Erika Foster series, although I think it would have been stronger with a bigger presence by the secondary characters which provide diversity and depth to these British police procedurals. I'm hoping that these subordinate characters (Erika's erstwhile bed-partner James Peterson and lesbian friend Kate Moss) play a larger role in the sixth book in the series, Deadly Secrets.
Title: Cold Blood.
Author: Robert Bryndza.
Paperback: 356 pages.
Publisher: Bookotoure.
Date Published: September 20, 2017.
Date Read: July 20, 2019.
GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆ (4.0/5.0).
OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: B+.
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