Dead Souls by Angela Marsons

Dead Souls by Angela Marsons is a gripping, emotional and addictive novel that kept me captivated from start to finish. With a dark main theme, the author tackles racism and hate crimes in this thriller, challenging our perceptions and beliefs.

The book opens with a disturbing scene in which a teenage boy commits suicide after writing a letter to his mother. Though it’s evident he’s done something terribly wrong for which he feels guilty, we are left in he dark as to what he has done.

When a routine demonstration dig for forensic archaeology students turns up human bones, Macedonian forensic archaeologist Dr A. summons Detective-Inspector Kim Stone to the site where she meets her nemesis DI Tom Travis of the neighbouring West Mercia police who claims that the investigation should be led by his team. Certain that her boss Woody will back her plea for her team to handle the investigation, Kim Stone feels deflated when she’s ordered to work alongside Travis as the land on which the bones were found lies right in between the two police precincts.

The plot is expertly woven with three strands of storylines – trying to work out why the bones were on the tenant farmer’s land, meeting with a vile racist intent on moving immigrants out of his area and seeing Stacey conducting her own investigation into the teenager’s suicide under her own initiative.

Dead Souls is the sixth book in the Detective-Inspector Kim Stone series but it is the first book in the series that I have read. I am definitely going to read more of D.I. Kim Stone novels as I have become a fan of the feisty Kim Stone.

Relax and enjoy the fireworks!