Blood Runs Cold by Dylan Young @dyoungwrites @bookouture #blogblitz

Well, hello there! Welcome to my stop on the blog blitz for Blood Runs Cold by Dylan Young. My thanks to Noelle Holten at Bookouture for the invitation to join and the review copy!

Author : Dylan Young
Title : Blood Runs Cold
Series : Detective Anna Gwynne #2
Pages : 304
Publisher : Bookouture
Publication date : May 16, 2018

When eleven-year-old Blair Smearton is abducted near a river bank on the hottest day of the year, no-one can trace the man spotted taking her.

Detective Anna Gwynne is back at work with her cold case unit following a brutal attack that nearly cost her her life. She’s investigating the death of young Rosie Dawson, whose bones were found hidden in a hole in the ground ten years ago. At least avenging Rosie’s murder, focussing on her past, can help Anna ignore her own.

The only lead Anna has is a photo of Rosie posted on a chat room hidden deep online. And then she finds one of Blair. Kidnapped. In the exact same dark room. The same concrete walls. The same stony floor. The killer is bragging. No-one can trace the photo.

Blair’s time is running out. But Anna has a contact who knows the dark web better than anyone. He’s the key to finding those girls. Can Anna get his help to find Blair alive?

When I read the first instalment in this series, The Silent Girls, a while back, I called it a fantastic start. Little did I know at the time that Dylan Young was holding a wee something back there. Because if you thought that was good, let me tell you right now that Blood Runs Cold is even better!

Detective Anna Gwynne returns to work with her cold case unit after a seven month absence due to events from the previous book. She’s investigating the murder of young Rosie Dawson, whose bones were found ten years ago. There are very little leads and the case has stalled. Up in Edinburgh, eleven year old Blair Smearton is abducted. Are these abductions connected somehow? Is there a paedophile ring snatching young girls? Or is there something else going on?

On top of that, Anna has a new colleague and boy, is he a piece of work. He’s causing a heck of a lot of turmoil all over the place with colleagues and suspects alike. And of course, and also yay (!), Hector Shaw makes another chilling appearance. Now that guy makes my blood runs cold! More than anything though, in this storyline I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the perspective of someone who may or may not have been accused wrongly of a crime.

Blood Runs Cold has a great pace throughout and an intricate plot. It’s dark, unsettling, disturbing and at some points quite uncomfortable to read. I can handle pretty much all the gruesome stuff that’s thrown at me in my crime fiction but there’s something especially horrifying when a case involves children. Not that this is particularly gruesome, if you are worried about that. It’s just the thought of what these young girls are going through that gets to me. Harrowing to say the least.

This is another delicious and intense page-turner of a crime thriller and a truly fantastic addition to the series. Utterly gripping and compelling edge-of-your-seat stuff that had me glued to the pages. Time is ticking away for Blair. Will the team get to her in time? Only one way for you to find out by grabbing your copy today!

Blood Runs Cold is available for purchase!

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Kobo | Goodreads

Dylan Young grew up in a mining village in South Wales before boarding a train for university in London. A career in the NHS followed, but the urge to write never went away.

Three dark psychological thrillers for Random House emerged in the late nineties, two of which were made into BBC films. Over the last decade, under different pseudonyms, he’s written children’s books and an adult contemporary fantasy series. But his liking for crime (writing) never died.

Book 1 in the Detective Anne Gwynne crime thriller series, The Silent Girls, and Book 2, Blood Runs Cold, are available now.

Author links : Facebook | Twitter | Website