Old Friends and New Enemies by Owen Mullen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Read 18/02/2017 – 20/02/2017 rating 4.8 stars
This is the 2nd book in the Charlie Cameron series by Owen Mullen and I am totally addicted. It is well written and totally gripping.
The story is told from the perspective of Charlie Cameron who is a PI. Anyone who hasn’t read The Games People Play may struggle with Charlie’s character but I think Owen has cleverly developed the character so that the book works very well as stand alone. There is a gap between book 1 and this book but I didn’t manage to work out how long the gap is but it was long enough for Charlie to go from a relationship back to single status.
Charlie is a very lonely character who fell into finding missing people by accident and has built a PI business around his natural skill for searching for, and usually finding, missing people. He has a difficult relationship with his parents who are very political and wealthy a lifestyle Charlie has shunned and I doubt he will be changing that anytime soon.
Charlie has a freelance helper in his investigative work in the shape of Pat who is usually in the middle of a marital crisis of one kind or another. He is a unique character with excellent people skills and has an important role in the investigations due to his extraordinary ability to persuade people to talk and divulge information where many others fail. I think Pat really comes into his own in this book as his character develops.
I find that these books have a certain amount of humour, whether that is intentional or not I don’t know but I think it offsets the dark side excellently to produce a very gripping book full of suspense in which the reader isn’t quite sure what is going to happen next.
Charlie is tasked with finding a missing husband and during his initial search is faced with the dead body of his friend from years ago. This sees Charlie not only juggling cases but also brings him face to face with long lost love. Emotionally he is in a bad place and ping ponging about getting nowhere with either case while Pat and his other friends try to persuade him to focus. Meanwhile he is in the site of drug lords who believe he has information they want.
This is a fast paced roller coaster of a thriller with a very realistic, personal touch and an unexpected ending. I am hoping there will be many more in this series
Thank you to Bloodhound Books who provided me with an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.
