Thursday, June 10, 2021

"Salt in the Wounds" by Mark Richards


Michael Brady and his daughter Ashley are moving for a year from Manchester to Whitby in northeastern England. Michael has been a detective chief inspector in Manchester, but he’s taking a year sabbatical to write and get away. What he’s getting away from is the death of his wife, inured in a hit-and-run incident that was no accident, except the driver had been aiming for Michael. His wife was in a coma for six months until he agreed with the doctors to remove her from life support. 

Whitby is his hometown; his sister Kate still lives married, married to a policeman herself and with two daughters. His best friend Patrick still lives there, too, married to his second wife and doing quite well financially. The town looks the same, but much has changed. 

 

During the annual Goth festival, Patrick is stabbed by an unknown assailant and later dies from the attack. The police, led by Michael’s brother-in-law, believe the wife is the culprit. Michael isn’t so sure, but he has to sit by while the police make the arrest. He undertakes his own investigation, and soon it’s clear that this is a murder tied into drugs, organized crime, and some very nasty thugs.

 

Mark Richards

Salt in the Wounds
 is the first novel in the Michael Brady crime thriller series by Mark Richards. It’s a great read of a story, building to a climax that will keep you closing the book and walking around, until you can’t stand it and have to find out what happened.

 

The two additional books in the series are The River Runs Deep and The Echo of Bones. Richards has also published Father, Son and the Pennine WayFather, Son and Return to the Pennine Way, and Father, Son and the Kerry Way – all three being accounts of long walks with his son. Richards is also a ghostwriter and copywriter, and he lives with his family in England.

 

If the rest of the books in the series are anything like Salt in the Wounds, some great crime novel reading lies ahead.

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