A serial killer is on the loose in Hamburg, targeting dancers from The Acapulco, a club in the city’s red-light district, removing their scalp as a gruesome trophy and replacing their hair with plastic wigs.
Chastity Riley is the state prosecutor responsible for crimes in the district, and she’s working alongside the police as they investigate. Can she get inside the mind of the killer?
Her strength is thinking like a criminal; her weaknesses are pubs, bars, younger men and dingy light, but as Chastity searches for love and a flamboyant killer–battling her demons and the dark, foggy Hamburg weather–she hits dead end after dead end, and it may be too late. For everyone...
"I think about her skin and get scared for my own."
Chastity Riley is back and as bold as ever. If you haven't read the other books in the Chastity Reloaded series, don't worry - they all pack a powerful punch as a stand-alone but I'd still recommend checking out the others to read more about Chastity and the insane situations she's found herself in.
Dark and dangerous, this story is dizzyingly twisty and sets off an intensely fast pace from the first paragraph, with quick chapters that jump from scene-to-scene. This is not a book for the faint-hearted, it depicts some viscerally stomach-churning scenes and utterly disturbing subjects, (but it's usually handled respectfully where possible)
Chastity is her usual wonderful self - dry, observant, full of morbidly uncomfortable humour. At times she does say things that force you to double-take, wonder why on earth she'd come out with those things, but then she pulls you back in. Despite her blunt exterior, and the appearance she's become desensitised to the horrors she regularly faces, there's always that strong sense of justice and care that pushes her forwards into the face of danger. At times she might seem a little distant and inaccessible, but she most definitely grows on you every time you.
Simone Buchholz has a way of making seemingly normal cityscapes come alive with malice, becoming increasingly claustrophobic and frightening almost like a character in the story. She delves into the gritty, dark corners of bright bustling cities, one where sex work isn't always a career choice, where drugs are cheaper than rent, and where it's easy to turn to dead.
Cinematic and sinister like a crime thriller, mixed with police procedural and genuinely human moments, The Acapulco is a macabre murder mystery that is a blinding addition to the series.
Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours and Karen at Orenda Books for inviting me to take part in this tour. I was gifted an advanced readers copy of this title in return for an honest review.
cws: death, mutilation, dead bodies, sexism, bomb threats, domestic violence.
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