For some time now I have noticed that the D.I. Kim Stone series has been highly praised by my fellow book bloggers. Therefore, I decided that despite my lengthy TBR, I would read the series in its entirety, one title every month. What a wise decision I made!

Confession though…. as this is the 10th novel in the series, I SHOULD have read and reviewed it in October 2019 – I’m falling behind. Woe is me…

I started reading this book on New Year’s Eve and it was a great way to end my reading year. I finished it in 2020 so it was also a great way to begin my new reading year. A win/win for me.

D.I. Kim Stone – An acerbic, brusque, and driven young woman who works as a Detective Inspector for the West Midlands Police, the second largest police force in the country. She is socially inept, and has been known to break the rules, as well as to disregard instructions and protocols in her search for justice. An insomniac, she is fueled by nervous energy and lots of coffee, and is beautiful, but she works hard to hide it. She is 34 years old, brilliant, hot-headed, and damaged. As a child, she suffered horribly, and was shunted from foster home to foster home. Only once did she experience a nurturing, loving relationship – and that was very short lived…. Now, when not working, her favourite thing to do is work at restoring vintage motorbikes. Bikes are her passion, and she uses a Kawasaki Ninja as her regular form of transport.

Other than her second in command, Bryant, she is friendless. Her one real weakness is her fondness for her adopted dog, Barney.

“No matter what the day held, Barney’s welcome was enough to put a smile on her face.”

Her team respect her and are very loyal. And no wonder – Kim never asks her team members to do anything that she would not do herself. She is fiercely protective of people she cares about and has an overriding passion for her job.

Police team

D.S. Bryant, twelve years her senior, is Kim’s partner and dearest friend. Devoted to his wife and daughters, Bryant is the glue that holds Kim’s team together.  Their banter is a delight to read.
In this novel, Bryant is worried for Kim’s emotional well-being as she is trying to ignore how her traumatic memories are being re-created by a diabolical psychopath.
Constable Stacy Wood, a diligent and hard-working local girl who excels at online research and data-mining which is often invaluable to the team’s success. Stacy is in a lesbian relationship and lives with her girlfriend. Still missing her work partner, Kevin Dawson, she is finally warming to his replacement, Austin Penn.
D.S. Austin Penn, is the newest member of the team, but not a complete stranger as he has worked with them twice before for short terms. Penn arrives at work every morning carrying a ‘man-bag’ and a tupperware container of cakes. Penn is slowly becoming accepted as one of the team. When not working, he cares for his mentally challenged brother.
D.C.I. Woodward (Woody) is Kim’s long-suffering superior. Like the rest of her team, he is loyal and stands up for her when the higher-ups would have her removed from the case. This time out Woody shows his creativity when forced to remove Kim from duty. His inventive ways of circumventing his orders constantly amuses me.
Alison Lowe, a criminal profiler, is seconded to the team this time out. She is known to the team in a professional capacity, but this time she is there to observe Kim herself… This book lets us learn more about Alison’s personal life, and highlights a case she was working on before joining Kim’s team.

Kim is emotionally battered in this outing, but handles it in her usual distanced manner. Which is extremely unhealthy in this case…

In DI Kim Stone’s tenth outing, a diabolical criminal is recreating the most traumatic events in Kim’s life. Anyone following this series will realize that living through them once would be shattering – having to re-live them could well be soul destroying…

Marson’s characters are becoming more and more like family to me. The series just seems to go from strength to strength. I highly recommend though that this series be read in order to fully realize its brilliance.

As I devoured this tenth novel in the series, I felt certain that this entire series is one I will certainly recommend to all lovers of gritty crime fiction. Lucky for me I purchased the entire series in order that I might read one installment every month for my “Marsons of the Month” blog series. I look forward to reading the eleventh book, “Child’s Play” within the next little while. Oh, and in case you didn’t already guess… “Dead Memories” is very highly recommended by me.

I purchased “Dead Memories“ in Kindle format.

Angela Marsons discovered her love of writing at Primary School. She wrote the stories that burned inside and then stored them safely in a desk drawer.
After much urging from her partner, she began to enter short story competitions in Writer’s News resulting in a win and three short listed entries. She self-published two of her earlier works before concentrating on her true passion – Crime.
After many, many submissions she signed an eight book deal with Bookouture as their first crime author. Her D.I. Kim Stone novels have sold 3 million copies.

Angela Marsons is from Brierley Hill in the West Midlands and is a former security guard at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. She continues to live in the Black Country with her partner and their bouncy Labrador and potty-mouthed parrot.

Follow Angela Marsons on Twitter.