#BlogTour: The Acapulco by Simone Buchholz @ohneKlippo @FwdTranslations @OrendaBooks @RandomTTours #TheAcapulco #SimoneBuchholz #TeamOrenda #RandomThingsTours

Book Synopsis:

A serial killer is on the loose in Hamburg, targeting dancers from The Acapulco, a club in the city’s red-light district, taking their scalps as gruesome trophies and replacing them 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 and destructive relationships, 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.

As panic sets in and the death toll rises, it becomes increasingly clear that it may already be too late. For everyone…

My Review:

The Acapulco is a gritty, compelling thriller that I really enjoyed.

Firstly I have been a huge fan of this series from the first book so I found it fascinating to go back to the beginning and see how everything started for Chastity. I’ve always liked how realistic a character she is and how affected she gets by what she sees as it shows that she cares. Her way of coping though was quite heartbreaking to see sometimes and I found myself hoping that someone would help her or give her the love I feel she desperately needs.

It was interesting to learn more about Hamburg and to visit the seedier side of the city, where I would never dare visit in real life. The investigation, with the aspect of ritual killing, was very intriguing to follow as I’ve always found it fascinating to learn more about the reasons behind them. I liked how Chastity tries to get into the characters head so that we can see how they might think or act. Fair warning though some of the detail used is quite gruesome and definitely not for the faint hearted. I was quite glad that I wasn’t Chastity and having to see it all first hand as the descriptions on their own were enough to turn my stomach.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and hope there are more books to come in this fabulous series. The book starts off slow but soon picks up to become very hard to put down. There were some amazing twists that took me by surprise and I liked how everything came together at the end. The only downside to this book was that the title had me singing the song by the same name continuously as I read which drove my family mad.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Orenda for my copy of this book.

About The Author:

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg. In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The critically acclaimed Beton Rouge, Mexico Street, Hotel Cartagena and River Clyde all followed in the Chastity Riley series, with The Acapulco out in 2023. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.