Unforgivable (DC Will MacReady #2) - Mike Thomas

Bombs detonate in a busy souk, causing massive devastation. 

An explosion rips apart a mosque, killing and injuring those inside. 

But this isn't the Middle East - this is Cardiff . . . 

In a city where tensions are already running high, DC Will MacReady and his colleagues begin the desperate hunt for the attacker. If they knew the 'why', then surely they can find the 'who'? But that isn't so easy, and time is fast running out . . . 

MacReady is still trying to prove himself after the horrific events of the previous year, which left his sergeant injured and his job in jeopardy, so he feels sidelined when he's asked to investigate a vicious knife attack on a young woman. 

But all is not as it seems with his new case, and soon MacReady must put everything on the line in order to do what is right.

What did I think?

With such an explosive start, the reader is launched straight into the action in Unforgivable, the second book in the DC Will MacReady series.  I do usually like to read books in order; sometimes you can get away with not reading the previous books and other times it really is a necessity.  For me, Unforgivable just scrapes through into the former; I would have liked to have read the first book but I didn't need to have read it in order to enjoy this one.

The first chapter is quite chilling as a bomb goes off in a busy market in Cardiff.  A short while later another bomb is detonated in a mosque and across town a young woman is stabbed.  As chaos descends on Cardiff, Will MacReady already has a lot going on in his personal life.  Will's brother, Stuart, is in court and Stuart's baby is at home with Will's wife, who is also the baby's mother.  What a complicated life Will has!  It is because of this complex personal story that I would have liked to have read the first book prior to reading this one, but it's certainly intriguing enough to make me want to look out for book one: Ash and Bones.

With the city on high alert, Will struggles to keep the press interested in the death of the young woman who got stabbed, Heidi Paxton. Heidi's death is no less senseless than the innocent people murdered at the market and mosque...but is Heidi one of the innocents?  As Will investigates, he finds that there is more to Heidi than he bargained for.  As he races to uncover the truth about Heidi, time is ticking and the next Cardiff attack is imminent.  Can Will stop it in time?

Unforgivable is perhaps not quite as fast paced as I expected, but it certainly kept me engrossed and eager to turn the pages.  I loved how the book was sectioned into days as it brought added realism to the story.  It is a highly detailed police procedural thriller and I loved the banter between the police officers; I sometimes felt like I was a fly on the wall inside a police station.  Some chapters are told from the point of view of the bombers and these chapters really are quite chilling as they go about their lives with their true feelings hidden from friends and family.

I'm sure Mike Thomas has a lot more up his sleeve for DC Will MacReady so I definitely want to pick up the first book in the series before book 3 comes out.  I have a feeling that this series is going to be a firm favourite among crime fiction fans, so keep your eye on this one!

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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BLOG TOUR: Unforgivable (DC Will MacReady #2) - Mike Thomas

I've heard nothing but good things about Unforgivable by Mike Thomas so I am thrilled to be taking part in the blog tour.  Today I have an extract for you but look out for my review over the next week or so, and don't forget to visit the other stops on the tour.

UNFORGIVABLE EXTRACT

This chapter takes place late at night, after the bombs have gone off in the market and mosque. MacReady has gone off duty, so we switch to another person’s point of view: the bomber, who is drunk and alone and mulling over what he has done…

He sits amongst the detritus, the remnants of fast food and discarded bottles of alcohol and the thick stench of his own flesh, the television remote control resting on his naked white stomach, the matted hair around his filthy navel curling up along the handset, his eyes unblinking and on the images flickering across the television screen.

Smoke and misery and the pulse of blue lights. A breathless reporter, face smudged, his puny hands twisting at a microphone as he struggles to put into words what he has witnessed. What his eyes have seen that can never be unseen. His fey, bland voice battling to explain the unexplainable as inoffensively as possible. Must not affront anyone. Must not fan the outrage. Be inclusive. Be diverse. Be bland with your tamed tongue.

He laughs as he watches because it is written all over the man’s twisted face: he wishes he was home with his loved ones. Wishes he was holding them tight. Wishes he could piss and moan and gnash his teeth live on the idiot box, railing against the horrors of this world, a world which he probably doesn’t understand anymore.

He’s with the newsman on that count. The world is fucking insane. People are so inured, so numb, so disgracefully self-absorbed with their pouting selfies and endless cat pictures and stupid status updates, you have to do something spectacular to make them sit up and take notice.

And it is spectacular. He’s been watching the fallout all day, clicking through the rolling twenty-four-hour news coverage, occasionally flicking back to the PlayStation to shoot up a few pedestrians or rip off a bank, turning back to the news again, revelling in a solid wall of unending chaos interrupted just the once when it all became too much for him and he had to masturbate into a half-empty beer bottle.

‘That’ll learn you,’ he says to the television. ‘That’ll learn you, you fucks.’

The alcohol has finally hit him hard and he finds the words wrestling with his tongue, finds himself unable to stop the drool which leaks from his bottom lip onto his left nipple and he thinks about wiping it away, studies the spittle and his pinched pink areola for a minute or so while he decides if it’s worth the effort, if he still has the energy after all that has taken place, and as the saliva soaks into his slippery skin he decides to leave it be. It is late, and he is exhausted now, the successes of the day finally catching up with him, the adrenaline finally – finally, more than fifteen hours later – spent, the TV screen suddenly shifting in his vision. He blinks the blurriness away, shakes his head a little. Glances around, at the mess he has created, the destruction he has wrought upon this room, a smaller version of the destruction meted out this morning.

‘One more go,’ he dribbles, and lifts up the remote control, carefully switches over to the game he’s loaded, drops the remote back to his distended abdomen and reaches for the controller. The shooter ready to go. His ammo maxed. The target building chock full of stuffed shirts and office drones and PowerfuckingPoint pointlessness. 

About the author:

Mike Thomas was born in Wales in 1971. For more than two decades he served in the police, working some of Cardiff’s busiest neighbourhoods in uniform, public order units, drugs teams and CID. He left the force in 2015 to write full time.

His debut novel, Pocket Notebook, was published by William Heinemann (Penguin Random House) and longlisted for the Wales Book of the Year. The author was also named as one of Waterstones' 'New Voices' for 2010. His second novel, Ugly Bus, is currently in development for a six part television series with the BBC.

The first in the MacReady series, Ash and Bones, was published in August 2016 by Bonnier Zaffre. The sequel, Unforgivable, is published in July 2017.

He lives in the wilds of Portugal with his wife, two children and an unstable, futon-eating dog.

More details can be found on the website www.mikethomasauthor.co.uk

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