Perfect Crime - Helen Fields

Reading Challenge Category: Fifth book in the series

Official Blurb:

Your darkest moment is your most vulnerable…
Stephen Berry is about to jump off a bridge until a suicide prevention counsellor stops him. A week later, Stephen is dead. Found at the bottom of a cliff, DI Luc Callanach and DCI Ava Turner are drafted in to investigate whether he jumped or whether he was pushed…
As they dig deeper, more would-be suicides roll in: a woman found dead in a bath; a man violently electrocuted. But these are carefully curated deaths – nothing like the impulsive suicide attempts they’ve been made out to be.
Little do Callanach and Turner know how close their perpetrator is as, across Edinburgh, a violent and psychopathic killer gains more confidence with every life he takes…

My Thoughts:

This is the fifth book in the DI Luc Callanach and DCI Ava Turner series. Unfortunately, it wasn’t my favourite.
I like the camaraderie between Luc and Ava, and I did feel it was missing in book two; they had started to rekindle their friendship in the last two books, and it was finding a good balance. However, in this one, it was mainly all about them, and other members of the team’s lives. The crime felt like an afterthought. It was too heavy on the drama and was lacking in the horror and investigative side of things.
The crime itself wasn’t as cleverly thought out as the past ones in the series. The culprit just didn’t quite sit right; it felt too forced, meaning the ending fell flat.
When I pick up this genre of book, I want to be shocked, appalled and horrified. This book did none of those things.
As I say, I do like the relationship between Luc and Ava, but the right balance needs to be found; otherwise, these books are in danger of being categorised as romance novels.
Only three stars for this one from me. I was going to go straight to book six, but I just can’t face it quite yet.