#BlogTour: The Dead Don’t Speak by Claire Askew @OneNightStanzas @HodderBooks @AlainnaGeorgiou #TheDeadDontSpeak #ClaireAskew #DIBirch

Book Synopsis:

The brilliant new novel from award-winning writer and rising star Claire Askew.

A city that’s no longer safe…
An anonymous vigilante stalks the streets of Edinburgh. As his behaviour escalates, the police are at a loss – they can find no clues to his identity, and no trace of his whereabouts.

A detective in the path of danger…
DI Helen Birch has been told to stay away from the case – but she’s never been one to play by the rules. When her colleague Amy comes to her asking for help, DI Birch finds it impossible to resist the challenge – and soon, her life is on the line.
Will she crack the case before it breaks her? Or has she finally met her match?
A gripping crime thriller for fans of Susie Steiner, Elly Griffiths and Val McDermid – guaranteed to keep you up all night…

My Review:

The Dead Don’t Speak is another fantastically gripping addition to one of my favourite crime series.

Firstly it was great to be back with Helen, helping her to solve another mystery. This time we join a very different Helen to the one we’re used to due to the injury she picked up at the end of the last book, which she’s not coping very well with. Her inability to deal with the restrictions of her injury helped lead to some of the lighter moments in the book, especially when it’s winds up her ever tolerant team.

I felt the pace was a bit slower than in other books but I didn’t mind that as it was fun to just hang out with Helen, her team and her dad who I absolutely loved. There are some quite intense, gritty moments in this book which might not be to everyone’s taste but I didn’t think it was over done and helped contribute to a lot of the tension in the book.

The tension slowly increases as the story goes on and there were lots of twists and surprises that kept me guessing. The ending was brilliant and I’m excited to read more installments in this series – though hopefully with a fully healed Helen.

Huge thanks to Alainna Georgiou for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Hodder for my copy of this book.

About The Author:

Claire Askew is the author of the Edinburgh-set DI Birch crime fiction series, published by Hodder & Stoughton. ALL THE HIDDEN TRUTHS (2018) won the 2016 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize as a work in progress, and the 2019 Bloody Scotland Crime Debut Prize. It was also shortlisted for the CWA John Creasy Debut Dagger and the CWA Gold Dagger in 2019. The follow-up, WHAT YOU PAY FOR (2019), was also shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger in 2020. COVER YOUR TRACKS, the third book in the series, was published in 2020, and book four, A MATTER OF TIME (2022) was longlisted for the 2022 McIlvanney Prize. Claire is also a poet, and the author of THIS CHANGES THINGS (2016) and HOW TO BURN A WOMAN (2021), both published by Bloodaxe Books. Her non fiction book NOVELISTA: ANYONE CAN WRITE A NOVEL – YES, EVEN YOU was published by John Murray in 2020. Claire has been a Jessie Kesson Fellow, a Hawthornden Fellow, and Writer in Residence at the University of Edinburgh.