Bones of Contention by Candy Denman #BlogTour #BonesOfContention @thebookfolks X: @CrimeCandy #ukcrimefiction #book

Bones of Contention by Candy Denman

Publication Dates: 13th November 2023 (Hardback), 20th February 2024 (Paperback)

Published by The Book Folks

Book 7 in the Dr Callie Hughes Crime Investigation Series

My thanks to The Book Folks Publishers for the opportunity to feature my review as part of the blog tour promotion.

Book Description:

A police doctor tries to extricate herself from a tricky situation in this gripping medical thriller.

When human remains are discovered in the garden of a house in the seaside town of Hastings, Dr Callie Hughes can’t resist trying to dig up the truth.

However, her amateur sleuthing is put on the backburner when her car is vandalised. She seems to have a stalker, and they are becoming increasingly intent on terrorising her.

DI Steve Miller suspects it is a released criminal whom Callie helped put behind bars. But even with the detective sleeping outside her home and her friend Kate Ward protecting her, the situation escalates.

Perhaps it is time to up sticks, leave the south coast for good, and head to Belfast where her boyfriend is waiting.

Or perhaps someone with a bone to pick will stop Callie in her tracks.

BONES OF CONTENTION is the seventh standalone mystery in this bestselling medical crime fiction series. The full list of books, FREE with Kindle Unlimited and available in paperback from Amazon, is as follows:

1. DEAD PRETTY
2. BODY HEAT
3. GUILTY PARTY
4. VITAL SIGNS
5. DEADLY REMEDIES
6. MURDER LUST
7. BONES OF CONTENTION

If you enjoy fiction by Patricia Cornwell, Tim Sullivan, or Kathy Reichs, you’ll love these books!

Buy your copy via the links here:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CN755M8P 

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CN755M8P

My Thoughts:

I am very late to the party with this series, but when Polly invited me to read this latest instalment I was interested in the main character's job as a police doctor, alongside her regular family doctor role.

The book dives straight in with the discovery of  some bones by a team of builders working in the garden of a residential address in Callie's catchment area. Once Callie has confirmed that they are indeed human, the team of detectives and crime scene investigators are brought in to find out more. 

Whilst I am not a detective myself, it doesn't take much of a sleuth to work out that one of the detectives working on the case has more than a professional interest in any information Callie can give him - especially when a series of attacks on her property gradually escalates as the case progresses. Is she being targeted because she is making her own lines of enquiry into potential leads on the case or is it someone with a more personal grudge against Callie herself? Both possibilities have strong motives behind them, causing Callie to start rethinking the whole setup of both her personal and professional lives.

I personally enjoyed the balance of the two threads of Callie's story in this book. We rarely consider the backgrounds of the professional people in our lives - we forget they too have families and circumstances outside of their public personas. Maybe elderly parents to support, children (or decisions whether to have children or not) and other outside influences are often forgotten in favour of the job role the person has chosen.  This book explores how events professionally can affect our personal lives, and vice versa.

My personal advice regarding this book is to start the series at the beginning - I think the reader will get far more from that than reading it as a standalone. It works very well as such, but if, like me, you want to know the characters in more depth, you will understand the relationships within this book far better if you go back to the start. 

A satisfying read in itself, I am now curious as to where the story goes next as there are little antennae of potential storylines leading from this book which the author has the option to pick up and run with in the future.

About the Author:

Candy Denman spent most of her life as an NHS nurse but now concentrates on writing full time. She has written extensively for television programmes such as The Bill, Doctors and Heartbeat. Having enjoyed writing both crime and medical stories, she decided to combine the two in her series set in Hastings. The medical stories might come from Candy’s previous work, but the serial killer elements come strictly from her imagination.

Author’s social media links 

X: @CrimeCandy 

Instagram: candydenman 

Author’s website: www.candydenman.co.uk

Publisher contacts:

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