Needles and Pins- Review

 

Author: Anna Willett

Publisher: The Book Folks 

Publishing Date: 23rd June 2024 

Many thanks to the author and publishing team for my digital copy of the book inturn for an honest review

Blurb 

A female detective sails close to the wind when a murder is discovered.

Detective Veronika Pope is enjoying an idyllic holiday at a beach house on the Coral Sea, when her detective partner asks for help with a cold case.

Arthur Tetley has been missing for ten years. When his body is found wrapped in plastic and buried in the rainforest, the marks it bears are hard to misread.

The business tycoon met a horrific end at the hands of someone who clearly wanted him to suffer in death.

Detective Pope has a hunch someone close to the victim knows more than they’ve let on. Yet the past has been buried deep, and few people want it to surface.

In her quest to find answers, Pope is forced to confront memories of her own which, like the victim, might better have been kept unearthed.

My Thoughts

My first read from the author and I really enjoyed it. A short read so I managed in 1 sitting. 

I liked the pace on the book, it kept up by providing enough details to the plot that each chapter was filled with enough information and twists leading to the next. It touches on the complexity of relationships and how a secret can manifest over time and due to concealing it can snowball into a greater disaster. 

The character development I enjoyed but as this is book 5 I feel I may have missed some parts especially when it came to Veronika. Although we do get reminded a bit about Veronika from previous books so it does not fully jump so I liked that. The number of characters is not big which was good given that it was a short read and the characters that were mentioned were all relevant to the plot without overloading lots of information. 

I did like the dual plot that runs as we learn more about the case but also Veronika herself as she deals with her own memories but trying to solve the case at the same time, which impacts in different ways. 

This is book 5 in the series and I have not read the previous ones but this was fine to read as a stand alone. Although now I am eager to start from Book 1 after reading Needles and Pins!