‘The Murder Box’ by Olivia Kiernan | @LivKiernan @riverrunbooks @QuercusBooks | #20BooksofSummer

Author : Olivia Kiernan
Title : The Murder Box
Series : Frankie Sheehan #4
Pages : 340
Publisher : Riverrun / Quercus
Publication date : July 22, 2021

| ABOUT THE BOOK |

At first, Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan believes the murder mystery game sent to her office is a birthday gift from one of her colleagues. But when Frankie studies the game’s contents, she notices a striking resemblance between the ‘murder victim’ and missing twenty-two-year-old Lydia Callin.

As Frankie and her team investigate, a series of grisly crimes connected to the game are discovered across Dublin city and Lydia’s involvement with a shadowy network of murder mystery players becomes clear.

On the hunt for Lydia’s murderer, Frankie is drawn more deeply into the game. Every successful move brings her closer to the killer. But the real question is not what happens should she lose — but what happens if she wins. 

| MY THOUGHTS |

It’s Frankie Sheehan’s birthday and someone has sent her a murder mystery box. Now, if you’ve ever thought to yourself “hey, this looks like fun!”, you might want to reconsider. I know I have! The contents of Frankie’s box could very well offer clues about an actual investigation she is involved with and they will definitely turn out to be more gruesome than she expected.

First of all, there is the disappearance of tv celebrity Terry Dolan. Terry vanished after visiting a gallery a month ago and apart from a finger, nobody has seen or heard anything from him since. Frankie and her team have nothing to go on and the investigation has stalled completely. Until a young woman tells Frankie her flatmate, Lydia, is missing and she is sure Lydia had an affair with Terry. Are these two cases connected? Did they run off together, perhaps?

With this fourth instalment in the Frankie Sheehan series, Olivia Kiernan has come up with quite the clever and original plot. The person on the other side of the murder box is a heartless killer whose only objective is to win the game their way. Frankie will need to keep her wits about her to crack this case and stop the killer before the clock literally runs out (no, really, it’s counting down on a website, holy cow!) because who the heck knows what will happen then.

‘The Murder Box‘ can quite easily be read as a stand-alone although, as per usual, I don’t advice it. This is such a solid crime series and each and every book gets you a top-notch storyline and brilliant characters. Frankie is a no-nonsense, dogged and determined kind of woman. She has no time for pleasantries and for the longest time, she wasn’t even really much of a team player. Until her partner Baz was pretty much forced upon her. Now, she can’t even imagine working without him by her side. But why is Baz acting so oddly? And why won’t he talk to her about it?

This was such a gripping and compelling read. Full of red herrings and delightful twists, it kept me guessing until the end. I couldn’t at all figure out the identity of the killer and I thought the reveal was incredibly well done. Fabulous premise, excellent execution, hugely enjoyable! Another fantastic addition to this series and I can’t wait for more.

My thanks to the publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own. The Murder Box is available for preorder and will be published on Thursday!

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20 Books of Summer : 6/20