Private London

BLUF: Not amazing, but not bad - this book is somewhere in the middle. It can be read as a standalone.

Private London follows two detectives: Kirsty Webb, who works for the police, and Dan Carter, who works for Private's London branch. Kirsty Webb is working to find a serial killer who preys on young women. Dan Carter's current assignments is to watch over and protect the daughter of a wealthy businessman – but when she is abducted, he is in a race against time to save her before she becomes the next victim.

The synopsis wants you to believe that Hannah's abduction could be related to the serial killer, but we are brought into the book so quickly that any notion that these events are connected only lasts briefly. Instead of intertwined cases, these cases are pretty separate. The only work mixture between the two ex-lovers is that the police are working the abduction case at the same time as Dan Carter and consider him to be a suspect. This is a shame as the main characters could be better explored against each other in a connected case more than they were explored working the separate cases. (Come to think of it, Kirsty did not have much interaction with anyone anyways.)There is not much to say about Dan Carter's case. Everything went smoothly. The reader is able to figure out the obvious parts, but there is a tangent that very few readers would have guessed.It was nice to see Kirsty's world, but the case that she was working on was half-baked and had an unsatisfying ending. She had a few emotional moments, but seemed otherwise apathetic. How else could you be satisfied, as a policeman, letting the killer run free and avoiding justice?

Private London has a slow start, but it grew on me. Like the first book in the series, there are an excessive amount of arbitrary chapters. (One conversation spanned over two chapters despite there being no break in conversation!) Unlike the first book, there is not an overwhelming amount of characters. In the end, I found the book amusing and a very quick read.

This whole thing was very confusing. Warning!!! This review will contain spoilers for Private Games!!!

This is #4 in the Private series. It comes after Private Games and that's what makes it confusing. I made sure numerous times that I was reading the books in the right order. When I was reading Private Games it is mentioned that a plane carrying most of Private London's head staff had crashed, killing everyone on board sometime before the book begins. Later on, Jack Morgan tells Peter Knight that the plane was sabotaged so someone had murdered their colleagues. And then that's it. The rest of the book is focused on the Olympics.

Private London takes place well before the events in Private Games. It's described as a prequel, but all it does is introduce characters that are all dead off page between two books. I don't get it. Private Berlin, next in the series has nothing to do with London so I'm assuming soon there will be another book based in London that will address the search for the killer?

Private London is full of fun little twists and turns and a few surprises although the biggest surprise wasn't very surprising to me. Does that make sense? When the mastermind was uncovered I had already had that person pegged as the one. Still, the journey to get to that point was fun.

I'd say that the characters were funny, intriguing and enjoyable, but who cares? Most of them will be dead before you read this book!

So weird.