BLOG TOUR: Blood Rites by David Stuart Davies

Publication date: 9th November 2017

I am extremely honoured to have been invited to be part of the blog tour for this excellent police procedural novel by David Stuart Davies on behalf of Urbane publications.

Book description: 
Blood Rites is the latest gripping DI Paul Snow thriller from renowned crime writer David Stuart Davies. 1980s Yorkshire. DI Paul Snow has a personal demon. He is a homosexual but is desperate to keep it secret, knowing it would finish his career in the intolerant police force. As this personal drama unfolds, he is involved in investigating a series of violent murders in the town. All the victims appear to be chosen at random and appear to have no connection with each other. After the fourth murder, he is removed from the case for not finding the killer but continues investigating the matter privately. Gradually, Paul manages to determine a link between the murder victims, but this places his own life in great danger. Can Paul unmask the killer as he wrestles with his own demons?

My review:

Set in mid 1980's Yorkshire, detective Paul Snow is struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality himself, let alone letting anyone else know about it as he knows his police career would be ended in an instant.  He tries to fit in to "normality" by dating a local school headmistress in the hope that this will not only create a smokescreen while he comes to terms with things but also in the hope that he might be able maintain a heterosexual relationship which will make him "snap out of it". In today's more open-minded society it is difficult to think that so many people must have faced the same dilemma in the past, especially those in positions of authority where it just was not an acceptable thing.

The book opens with a chapter named "the end" which I felt was very clever as the reader is led to think they know the conclusion - which in a way they do, but maybe not quite how you think. 

I very much liked the idea of cause and effect - or karma, if you like - and how it influenced the thinking of the murderer in this book.  How the killer justified why he took the lives he did helps us understand a little of what makes him tick, albeit in a very warped manner.  We are introduced to each victim in turn during the course of the book and the events which cause them to appear on the radar of our killer are described in a way that society would maybe back the killer's reasoning.  The clues available to our team of detectives are very limited, and due to lack of progress Paul Snow is taken off the case much to his disgust.  I loved the way his colleague valued his input and included him in the case in an unofficial capacity.

I had thought I had worked out the "whodunit" part of the story fairly early on, but then a couple of other options came in to play to keep me wondering just how well I had done.  This book made me think about how much we judge people based on events which sometimes are out of their control, and often how much we judge without knowing the full facts.  

I really wasn't expecting the book to end as it did - and was in a way disappointed that the possible follow up story that my mind had considered would not now be possible.  Once Paul Snow had been taken off the case I had thought up a few different career options for him alongside his detective sergeant, Bob Fellows.  We finish the book as we started with the chapter named "the end" but with rather more insight into what it all means. Clever writing, I'm sure you will agree.

I found this to be a very readable novel in its genre and will definitely look out for more titles from the author. 

A 4 star rating from me, and thanks again to Urbane publishers and the tour organiser for the opportunity to review this novel as part of the tour.

About the author: David Stuart Davies was born in 1946. He was a teacher of English before becoming a full-time editor, writer, and playwright. Davies has written extensively about Sherlock Holmes, both fiction and non-fiction. He is the editor of Red Herrings, the monthly in-house publication of the Crime Writers' Association.