Cut to the Bone

By Roz Watkins

Published by HQ Stories

What’s it about?

A DISTURBING DISAPPEARANCE

When beautiful young social-media star Violet Armstrong goes missing in the middle of a scorching Peak District summer, the case sparks a media frenzy.

A CHILLING MURDER

The clock is ticking for DI Meg Dalton and her team to find Violet before online threats explode into real-life violence. And then the blood and hair of a young woman are found in an empty pig trough at the local abattoir…

AN IMPOSSIBLE CRIME

The more Meg finds out about this unnerving case, the more she becomes convinced that something very, very bad has happened to Violet. With temperatures rising and the press demanding answers, the case is about to take a terrifying turn…

What I think:

This is the third book featuring DI Meg Dalton. I haven’t read the others in the series and this stands alone.

The central mystery become really interesting. Social media and Queen of bikini BBQing, Violet Armstrong goes missing. Animal rights campaigners are the prime suspect but things take a gruesome twist when blood is discovered in a pig through and it becomes a distinct possibility that Violet has been killed and fed to the pigs.

As Dalton and her team start to investigate there is a clear sense that there is more to the village of Gritton than it appears. Local folk lore tales of a Pale Child appearing during times of drought, former residents who refuse to go back and very strained relationships.

Why is a beautiful teenage social media star working in an abattoir in a Derbyshire village in the first place?

As the investigation deepens and the secrets are revealed this story takes you down some shocking paths and while you may have suspicions as to who is involved I guarantee you won’t suspect how. There are some very strange and sinister things going on behind Gritton’s cottage doors.

Meg Dalton is an interesting character. She has her own back story and tragic past. She’s a workaholic fighting her feelings for her coworker.

At times I found the subplots based around relationships between the team of police a little distracting. They didn’t really add much to the story and seemed to be there to go off and ring Dalton with information that was needed to move the investigation along. Girlfriends and wives appearing to ask Dalton to intervene in the relationships did not seem necessary.

I really liked the stories of the Pale Child which were really connected to the Peak District landscape and the history of the village. These added an extra dimension to the story.

I enjoyed this book and would definitely read more in the series. If you like British police crime thrillers I think you will like Roz Watkins.

Thank you to Roz Watkins and HQ Stories for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour.