I am delighted to be part of the #BlogTour for Blue Knight by Simone Buchholz and my thanks to Karen Sullivan, Orenda and Anne Cater for organising it.
About the Book: After convicting a superior for corruption and shooting off a gangster’s crown jewels, the career of Hamburg’s most hard-bitten state prosecutor, Chastity Riley, has taken a nose dive: she has been transferred to the tedium of witness protection to prevent her making any more trouble. However, when she is assigned to the case of an anonymous man lying under police guard in hospital – almost every bone in his body broken, a finger cut off, and refusing to speak in anything other than riddles – Chastity’s instinct for the big, exciting case kicks in.
Using all her powers of persuasion, she soon gains her charge’s confidence, and finds herself on the trail to Leipzig, a new ally, and a whole heap of lethal synthetic drugs. When she discovers that a friend and former colleague is trying to bring down Hamburg’s Albanian mafia kingpin single-handedly, it looks like Chastity Riley’s dull life on witness protection really has been short-lived…
Fresh, fiendishly fast-paced and full of devious twists and all the hard-boiled poetry and acerbic wit of the best noir, Blue Night marks the stunning start of a brilliant new crime series, from one of Germany’s bestselling authors.
My Review: This is my first foray into German Noir and definitely not my last. Simone Buchholz has created a phenomenal female character, Chastity Riley – previously a high profile state prosecutor who has been demoted to a desk job in a cubbyhole and now basically babysits witnesses needing protection. She’s an intelligent, fierce, loyal, tough main character who loves a drink (or 10), smokes far too much and has a very dry sense of humour, which made me laugh out loud several times.
It does take a while to get use to the narrative and the constant switching between timelines and multiple characters, but once you do grasp it Blue Night is a fast paced, action crime thriller that just keeps you glued to each page.
This is a relatively short book at 276 pages and I found myself racing through each page eager to find out more about the mystery man Chastity has been assigned to, her relationships with her friends and colleagues and the story behind Chastity’s past.
Blue Night is a brilliant start to the series and I can’t wait to read more from this author.
