Title: All Fall Down
Author: M.J. Arlidge
Publisher: Orion
Date of publication: June 11th 2020
Genre: crime fiction, police procedural
Format reviewed: e-ARC
Source: publisher
Number of pages: 496
“You have one hour to live.”
Those are the only words on the phone call. Then they hang up. Surely, a prank? A mistake? A wrong number? Anything but the chilling truth… That someone is watching, waiting, working to take your life in one hour.
But why?
The job of finding out falls to DI Helen Grace: a woman with a track record in hunting killers. However, this is A case where the killer seems to always be one step ahead of the police and the victims.
With no motive, no leads, no clues – nothing but pure fear – an hour can last a lifetime…
“You have an hour to live.”
What would you do if you heard a voice on the phone telling you you’re about to die? I would probably freak out and stare at the clock for 59minutes!
Six words. That’s all it takes for M.J. Arlidge to get me hooked on the latest D.I. Grace novel! Well, technically, it began with the opening and my encounter with Justin Lanning. Interesting character, quite intriguing… and living one of my worst nightmares only three pages in!!! One word: elevator. My heart began pumping furiously and I believe from that point onward, it didn’t stop. It even increased with each dead body…
What a clever plot! What a freakish, absolutely fantastic plot! Justin’s death creates a ripple effect that only gets stronger as you keep reading. Hints of a past case pepper the start of the case and soon, the links are too obvious to ignore. I loved jumping from past to present through bits of the cold case, and snippets of a book retelling the horrors a group of friends went through… In this heat, I was glad for the cold sweat the novel ‘kindly’ offered me! I read every chapter as quickly and with the same intensity Helen Grace rides her engine! A killer who always seems to be one step ahead, leads that slip between the police’s fingers, time running out, a list of people possibly in danger… All Fall Down is an action-packed thriller leaving plenty of room for each character to grow, change (or try to), and feel multi-dimensional. I loved how conflicted my own emotions were throughout the book. Some characters got on my nerves, some irked me, some made me smile…
In the end, I managed to get the who, but not the how or why! It was both frustrating and exciting! I love having to dig and do the legwork to find answers. The motive fit the deaths extremely well, so well I almost pitied the culprit. My only reserve was on the who… or rather how the who managed to stay under the radar. I suspended my disbelief for the final part. It was filled with adrenaline and explosive enough so it didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the book.
This new addition to the series is terrifying and really good!
Verdict
I loved it!
You can grab your copy here!
Thank you to Tracy Fenton for inviting me to be part of the blog tour and to Orion for providing me with a copy of this novel.
Oh I must catch up with the Helen Grace series. I read one of his standalone novels but although I enjoyed it, I didn’t love it as much as that series! Wonderful review!
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Thank you, doll! xxx
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I think I would be panicking and running around in circles for 59 mins 😉.
I get you with elevators 🤤. Sounds like a good read but quite long, nearly 500 pages.
Amanda xx
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I only realized the length of the book after I finished it! The beauty of ebooks haha! xx
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This is another series, I forgot about. Think I managed the first three books and then I lost track. I really should take it up again. Great review Meggy, it really sounds like a page-turner!
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That’s the hard thing with series! x
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LOL that bit about staring at the clock for 59 minutes cracked me up. I’d probably do the same too. Great review, Meggy.
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Haha, I’d panic while counting the seconds!! Thank you 🙂 x
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You made me want to read this book, great review! It sounded so intriguing and exciting, trying to unravel the plot.
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Oh thank you! If you read it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
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I’m so behind with this series! xD You’ve reminded me I should really find time to catch up though. Fantastic review! xx
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