Necropolis (The Necropolis Series Book 1) - Guy Portman

Danger and deceit come naturally to a sociopath.

Public sector worker Dyson Devereux has just discovered there is a large reward on offer for the capture of a genocidal fugitive. Dyson thinks he knows exactly where to find him. All the scheming sociopath needs now is a plan. It has to be good, otherwise he will be in big trouble.

But the obstacles to his mission are mounting. To compound matters, work colleagues are becoming ever more aggravating, and his girlfriend has gone off the rails.

Will Dyson get the reward he feels he so richly deserves, or is his destiny to be a life of toil in the Burials and Cemeteries department at Newton Council?

 

What did I think?

What a great start to a new series!  It feels wrong to say I loved sociopath Dyson Devereux but I really did love him.  His witty thoughts and observations had me laughing out loud and I often found myself agreeing with him.  Uh-oh!  Am I a sociopath?  No, I'm just not a great fan of people.

Dyson works for the local council in Burials and Cemeteries but behind his professional persona is a dark and dangerous killer.  Cross him and you'll find a part of you in his keepsake tin.  He reminisces about past kills, fantasises about new ones and the only personal pronoun in his dictionary is 'it".

Dyson's thoughts about his work colleagues are absolutely hilarious and one particular colleague has caught his eye.  Could a member of Dyson's team be a missing war criminal?  Dyson has a new target but it's one he must deliver alive in order to collect the huge reward.  

Aside from the escapade with the wanted fugitive, Dyson has a rather surprising personal life.  His girlfriend (I was surprised he had one) is mixed up with some shady characters and there's a pretty graphic drug-fuelled sex scene that some readers of a sensitive disposition may find uncomfortable to read.  

Hilarious, disturbing and completely entertaining, Necropolis is a highly original dark comedy.  It's like Dexter, The Office, American Psycho and The Benny Hill Show all rolled into one and I absolutely loved it.  My only disappointment was coming to the end of the book, and the ending is a little abrupt to ensure that everyone who reads Necropolis will be eager to read the next book, Sepultura. 

Many thanks to Guy Portman for sending me a digital ARC to read and review.  I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon

Deep Down Dead - Steph Broadribb

Lori Anderson is as tough as they come, managing to keep her career as a fearless Florida bounty hunter separate from her role as single mother to nine-year-old Dakota, who suffers from leukaemia. But when the hospital bills start to rack up, she has no choice but to take her daughter along on a job that will make her a fast buck. And that's when things start to go wrong. 

The fugitive she's assigned to haul back to court is none other than JT, Lori's former mentor - the man who taught her everything she knows … the man who also knows the secrets of her murky past. Not only is JT fighting a child exploitation racket operating out of one of Florida's biggest theme parks, Winter Wonderland, a place where 'bad things never happen', but he's also mixed up with the powerful Miami Mob. With two fearsome foes on their tails, just three days to get JT back to Florida, and her daughter to protect, Lori has her work cut out for her. When they're ambushed at a gas station, the stakes go from high to stratospheric, and things become personal. 

Breathtakingly fast-paced, both hard-boiled and heart-breaking, Deep Down Dead is a simply stunning debut. 

What did I think?

Deep Down Dead is one of those books that I saw a lot of excitement about on social media so I just had to pick up a copy for myself to see what all the fuss was about.  OMG!!  This book is simply brilliant.  I couldn't put it down and read it at such speed that I could feel my eyes zipping down the page before my brain had even got there.  If there was a book race, Steph Broadribb would win it - I bet this is a book that a lot of people would read in one sitting (I almost did).

Lori Anderson is a bounty hunter but she's had such a tough life that led her to this vocation.  I'll not go into it here as her back-story is a pivotal part of the story but Lori was trained by JT who she now has to track and bring in to jail.  With no sitter for her poorly 9 year old daughter, Dakota, Lori reluctantly has to take Dakota with her; the commission is just too good to refuse for what she sees as an easy pick up...but that's where she's wrong.  Boy, does she earn her fee.

I loved every single character in this book, even the mean ones.  They are so 3 dimensional that I felt as if they popped out of the pages like Princess Leia's holographic message stored in R2-D2's memory banks.  Lori, Dakota and JT go on such a journey that many times my eyes widened in surprise and I gasped in shock, yet I continued to race on through the book like my very life depended on it.  

Clear your decks, you will do nothing but read this book once you pick it up.  It really deserves something more than 5 stars to make it stand out from the rest, but you'll just have to take my word for it.  Believe me, you will not regret buying this book.  This is another one of those books that I should have reviewed in fewer words so you don't delay picking up a copy for yourself.  Deep Down Dead: you MUST read it, it's abso-flipping-lutely brilliant.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon