Blood Runs Cold

Written by Neil Lancaster

Narrated by Angus King

‘This book is one hell of a ride. Neil Lancaster’s Blood Runs Cold is spellbinding.’ NetGalley reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

She was taken against her will.

On her fifteenth birthday, trafficking victim Affi Smith goes for a run and never returns. With a new identity and secure home in the Scottish Highlands, she was supposed to be safe…

She escaped once.

With personal ties to Affi’s case, DS Max Craigie joins the investigation. When he discovers other trafficking victims have disappeared in exactly the same circumstances, he knows one thing for certain – there’s a leak somewhere within law enforcement.

She won’t outrun them again.

The clock is ticking… Max must catch Affi’s kidnappers and expose the mole before anyone else goes missing. Even if it means turning suspicions onto his own team…

Don’t miss the next book in the DS Max Craigie series! Fans of Ian Rankin and Marion Todd will love this utterly gripping Scottish thriller!

Readers LOVE Blood Runs Cold!

‘A nailbiting, energetic read.’ The Sun

‘Utterly compelling, ingeniously plotted and incredibly entertaining.’ Liz Nugent

‘A masterclass in how to deliver a taut pacy thriller hot off the page.’ Imran Mahmood

‘Compelling, emotionally charged, and impossible to put down… the stand out crime read of the year so far.’ John Barlow

‘Want pulse-pounding, shallowed-breathed, toe-curling police action? Here you go. Thank me later.’ Helen Fields

‘Thrilling, gripping, breathlessly brilliant crime-thriller that just won’t let you go until you know how it ends.’ Miranda Dickinson

‘A dark, gritty and fast paced police procedural that I was totally and completely absorbed by from the very start.’ NetGalley reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘One of my favourite crime writers by a country mile.’ NetGalley reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: Apr 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9780008551261

Reviews for Blood Runs Cold

[edwardsgt · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

After finding any number of excuses not to carry on reading, it finally dawned I should quit. Very weird plot and characters.

[bsquaredinoz · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Ren Bryce is the female FBI Agent put in charge of the investigation into the death of fellow agent Jean Transom whose body is discovered on the snow-covered mountains of Colorado. The body is subsequently lost in an avalanche but the investigation continues with Bryce heading up a team of agents and local law enforcement professionals in the small town of Breckenridge. Without a body or any easily identifiable reason for the death they must dig into Transom's background to find out what led to her death.

I ordered myself a copy of this book after hearing it discussed on Simon Mayo's Books Panel late last year. I don't remember what it was that the reviewers said that made me rush to Book Depository and I've long since deleted the podcast episode from my iPod. So I don't now know what they saw in the book but, whatever it was, completely passed me by.

Ren Bryce is immature, unprofessional, paranoid, whiny and completely unbelievable as an agent. Towards the end of the book a vague hint is made as to what might have possessed her to be an alcoholic who sleeps with all the wrong people but by then I no longer cared enough about her to forgive any of her foibles. I don't know if I'd have felt differently had she been given a better background earlier in the piece. The rest of the characters, of which there are far too many given the scant attention paid to most of them, are two-dimensional, near-misogynist men who are equally unbelievable in the roles cast for them.

The story is not much better. It drones on for nearly 500 meandering pages almost entirely devoid of plot development (90% of which happens in the first 50 pages and the last 75). The rest are full of introspective, paranoid ramblings by the protagonist that are so annoyingly out of context that what story threads do exist are easily dropped. Although ostensibly it's about the death of the FBI agent there's another crime badly wedged into the book to make it even more disjointed and complex. Apparently Ms Barclay doesn't write chronologically and, frankly, it shows.

I can't decide if this was a valiant, if failed, attempt to take the genre somewhere new or just plain bad. All I know is I didn't like it. At all.

[debavp · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had never heard of Barclay and only after a very cursory check did I decide to go ahead and pick this one up. I was pleasantly surprised and glad I did. If I hadn't known that she was an Irish writer (that cursory check) I would have guessed she was American and probably Southern as well. Wicked sense of humor, and a really good storyteller to boot. The way Barclay describes the geographical locations enhances the story as it moves along at a fast but not guns a-blazing pace. Definitely not the typical FBI story here, and Ren is not the typical FBI agent, and the supporting cast of main and minor characters are charming, sometimes annoying, yet still believable. Oh, and there's a little twist at the end that you just don't see coming.