Conspiracy of Ravens
by Robin Roughley
I received an ARC of this book from TBC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to both the author, Robin Roughley, and TBC for the opportunity to read this book.
I have not read previous books in the DS Lasser series, so to me, the first and most important observation was that this book can be read as a stand alone. There are references throughout to previous history and relationships between the characters, but this does in no way impact the understanding of how the plot develops and how the characters relate to each other.
In this book, DS Lasser and the team are called in to uncover what appears to be, at first glance, a suicide. However, it soon becomes evident that more sinister things are going on and the story picks up from there.
Pretty much from the first chapter, the body count goes up and up and up... there are so many bodies and people who are attached, it feels like a set of russian dolls being taken apart. While this makes for a fast paced plot, it also gives some sense of confusion and it was at times hard to remember who is who and why and how they were connected to the other characters. The story line is jam packed with bad guys, i really did not encounter one single person i could say i liked.
The police team seems to be somewhat dysfunctional and chaotic, which leads to quite a few blunders.. corruption at the highest level is rife. The main character does not seem to have many "likeable qualities" about him.
One thing that really did take away from my enjoyment of the book was the persistent use of profanity, it was not used to portray one character's personality, but peppered throughout. With foul language being used by everybody, from the detective to the most corrupt politician to the main "villain". For me, this took away from the story, rather than add anything meaningful.
If you don't mind strong language but like a fast paced, dark and violent read, then this is definitely going to be a good read.
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