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A review by theliterateleprechaun
The Dark Tide by Simon McCleave
4.0
I was craving a well-written police procedural with high-stakes and full-throttle adrenaline - Simon McCleave delivered.
I’d never heard of this author before, but his publisher reached out and invited me to read the second book in this series. Being gifted book 2 meant that I needed to read book 1! No regrets.
I loved the unique setting! Anglesey is a beautiful, historic island off the NW coast of Wales and McCleaves brings it to life. He gave me an inside view of a place I’d never visited and highlighted why and how this setting added to his police-procedural.
His characters were well-crafted and layered. I loved that they were fleshed out beyond their careers. The different backgrounds, motivations and personalities added to my engagement and McCleave added just enough back story so that I cared and connected, but not too much that it hampered the pace. Furthermore, he put just as much detail into crafting the protagonist as the antagonist. I was equally pulled in by the protagonist’s investigation as I was by the antagonist’s crimes. In fact, the tense scenes where their two worlds collided gave me the palpitating suspense I craved and set the stage for the characters to reveal another layer of their complexity.
Although I was disappointed by the language and the frequent reminders that this was definitely written by a male author, the in-depth research overshadowed my frustrations. McCleave was able to show how skilled his characters were and this, mixed with his ability to show me their ulterior motives without spelling them out, deepened my connection. Adding to my enjoyment was the dry humour, the vivid descriptions, the multi-POV, the British expressions and the Mancunian slang!
“I don’t wanna think there’s someone bent in our nick.”
This fantastically executed plot-driven crime fiction offered a high-stakes opening that pulled me in immediately and continued with enough car/boat chases, helicopters, raids, hostage situations and gang activity that kept the adrenaline flowing! Underneath all this was a subtle layer about dealing with loss, grief, and opening one’s heart to love again.
Bring on book 2 in this exciting series!
I’d never heard of this author before, but his publisher reached out and invited me to read the second book in this series. Being gifted book 2 meant that I needed to read book 1! No regrets.
I loved the unique setting! Anglesey is a beautiful, historic island off the NW coast of Wales and McCleaves brings it to life. He gave me an inside view of a place I’d never visited and highlighted why and how this setting added to his police-procedural.
His characters were well-crafted and layered. I loved that they were fleshed out beyond their careers. The different backgrounds, motivations and personalities added to my engagement and McCleave added just enough back story so that I cared and connected, but not too much that it hampered the pace. Furthermore, he put just as much detail into crafting the protagonist as the antagonist. I was equally pulled in by the protagonist’s investigation as I was by the antagonist’s crimes. In fact, the tense scenes where their two worlds collided gave me the palpitating suspense I craved and set the stage for the characters to reveal another layer of their complexity.
Although I was disappointed by the language and the frequent reminders that this was definitely written by a male author, the in-depth research overshadowed my frustrations. McCleave was able to show how skilled his characters were and this, mixed with his ability to show me their ulterior motives without spelling them out, deepened my connection. Adding to my enjoyment was the dry humour, the vivid descriptions, the multi-POV, the British expressions and the Mancunian slang!
“I don’t wanna think there’s someone bent in our nick.”
This fantastically executed plot-driven crime fiction offered a high-stakes opening that pulled me in immediately and continued with enough car/boat chases, helicopters, raids, hostage situations and gang activity that kept the adrenaline flowing! Underneath all this was a subtle layer about dealing with loss, grief, and opening one’s heart to love again.
Bring on book 2 in this exciting series!