About the book:
Reeling from the attempts on his life and that of his family, Police Inspector Robert Finlay returns to work to discover that any hope of a peaceful existence has been dashed. Assigned to investigate the Eastern European sex-slave industry just as a key witness is murdered, Finlay, along with his new partner Nina Brasov, finds himself facing a ruthless criminal gang, determined to keep control of the traffic of people into the UK. On the home front, Finlay’s efforts to protect his wife and child may have been in vain, as an MI5 protection officer uncovers a covert secret service operation that threatens them all… Picking up where the bestselling Wicked Game left off, Deadly Game sees Matt Johnson’s damaged hero fighting on two fronts. Aided by new allies, he must not only protect his family but save a colleague from an unseen enemy … and a shocking fate..
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About the author:
Matt Johnson served as a soldier and Metropolitan Police officer for twenty-five years. Blown off his feet at the London Baltic Exchange bombing in 1992, and one of the first police officers on the scene of the 1982 Regent’s Park bombing, Matt was also at the Libyan People’s Bureau shooting in 1984 where he escorted his mortally wounded friend and colleague, Yvonne Fletcher, to hospital. Hidden wounds took their toll. In 1999, Matt was discharged from the police with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. While undergoing treatment, he was encouraged by his counsellor to write about his career and his experience of murders, shootings and terrorism. One evening, Matt sat at his computer and started to weave these notes into a work of fiction that he described as having a tremendously cathartic effect on his own condition.
My thoughts:
Having recently read (and loved) Wicked Game, I was thrilled to be asked if I wanted to be a part of the blog tour for its follow up, Deadly Game. With it still being fresh in my mind. I feel that really made a difference to my reading of the second book. It was much easier to follow!
Deadly Game, as I said, picks up soon after where we left Robert Finlay at the end of Wicked Game. Finlay still seems to be suffering the effects of previous attempts on his life, and along with a change of location and PTSD, his world and family life seems to be up in a bit of a heap.
Deadly Game has very serious subject matter. Murder, corruption and sex trafficking are all within its pages and at times it makes for harrowing reading. This book isn’t as fast paced as Wicked Game. It is more of an examination of the psychological effects that the characters are experiencing from past and present events. Matt Johnson has done a great job in capturing the tortured psyches and the damaged and fragile minds that are caught up in the story.
I don’t want to go into detail with Deadly Game because it is layered and full of interesting characters which will keep the reader engaged from beginning to end. It is dark, it is twisty, and it is great!
Highly recommended!
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Matt Johnson is the author of the 2016 John Creasey CWA Dagger listed novel ‘Wicked Game’ which was listed by Amazon UK as the highest-rated rising star novel of 2016. 