BOOK REVIEW: Cold Blood (DCI Erika Foster, #5) by Robert Bryndza

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+.

BOOK REVIEW: The Girl in the Ice (Detective Erika Foster, #1) by Robert Bryndza

The Girl in the Ice is the first book I have read by Robert Bryndza. It is quite a good police procedural murder mystery with an interesting but flawed main character, DCI Erika Foster.

I am looking forward to reading more mysteries featuring DCI Foster. I’m sorta surprised that the author has made his main character have such a traumatic backstory (her policeman husband was shot and killed on a drugs raid that she was the commanding officer for). I presume this is the explanation for why Detective Foster  acts so inappropriately during the course of the investigation of the murder of the slutty daughter of a rich, politically connected businessman.

One key feature of the book which guarantees that I will read the next entries in the DCI Foster series is the diversity of the supporting characters: a lesbian DI, a handsome Black male DI and an openly gay pathologist. A relatively strong feature of the book is the level of suspense that is maintained throughout the book.  All of these supporting characters have interesting sub-plots in the book which greatly enhanced the book in my opinion.

However I did feel like a significant weakness of the book was the somewhat simplistic nature of the writing. One can't say that The Girl in the Ice is a complicated or thought-provoking read but then again very few murder-mysteries are. This is a notable exception to the complicated writing in Mark Billingham's Sleepyhead. 

That being said, since this is just the first book in the Detective Erika Foster series I expect the later entries will get better so I’m willing to give Bryndza an opportunity to improve, which I think he will.

RATING: 3.5 stars.

Title: The Girl in the Ice.
Author: Robert Bryndza.
Paperback: 396 pages.
Publisher: Bookouture.
Date Published: February 12, 2016.
Date Read: March 6, 2018.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.