Friday Favorite – The Night Stalker by Robert Bryndza

Looking for something to read over the weekend ?

Nothing on your book radar that is screaming ‘read me’?

Take a look at my Friday Favorite. It may be new. It may be old. It may be written by a famous author, or by someone you have never heard of. But wherever in the spectrum it falls, it will be a book that is special to me, one that has captured both my imagination and my heart.

EXCERPT: The screen of her phone timed out and she was plunged into total darkness. Just the sound of her labored breathing filled the silence. She panicked, fumbling to unlock the phone. At first her arthritic fingers wouldn’t move fast enough, but finally she managed it and the light came back on, casting the front room in a circle of dim blue.

It was stifling inside: the heat pressed down on her, closing off her ears. It was as if she was underwater. Dust particles twirled in the air; a cloud of tiny flies floated silently above a large arty china plate filled with brown wooden balls on the coffee table.

“It’s just a power cut,” she snapped, her voice resonating sharply off the iron fireplace. She was annoyed that she’d panicked. It was just the circuit breaker, nothing more. To prove that there was nothing to be scared of, she would first have a drink of cold water, and then she would get the electricity back on. She turned, shuffling purposefully off towards the kitchen, her arm outstretched with the phone.

The glass kitchen seemed cavernous in the phone’s half light, extending out into the garden. Estelle felt vulnerable and exposed. There was a distant whoosh and a click-clack as a train passed on the track beyond the bottom of the garden. Estelle went to a cupboard and pulled down a glass tumbler. Sweat stung as it dripped into her eyes; she wiped her face with her bare arm. She moved to the sink and filled her glass, wincing as she drank the lukewarm water.

The light went out on the phone again, and a crash from upstairs broke the silence. Estelle dropped the tumbler. It shattered, glass spraying out on the wood floor. Her heart pulsed and pounded, and as she listened in the darkness, there was another scuffling sound from above.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: If the Night Stalker is watching, you’re already dead…

In the dead of a swelteringly hot summer’s night, Detective Erika Foster is called to a murder scene. The victim, a doctor, is found suffocated in bed. His wrists are bound and his eyes bulging through a clear plastic bag tied tight over his head.

A few days later, another victim is found dead, in exactly the same circumstances. As Erika and her team start digging deeper, they discover a calculated serial killer – stalking their victims before choosing the right moment to strike.

The victims are all single men, with very private lives. Why are their pasts shrouded in secrecy? And what links them to the killer?

As a heat wave descends upon London, Erika will do everything to stop the Night Stalker before the body count rises, even if it means risking her job. But the victims might not be the only ones being watched… Erika’s own life could be on the line.

MY THOUGHTS: Robert Bryndza has definitely found his niche with this, the second book in the DCI Erika Foster series.

His writing is taut, tense and gripping. He spins a good story with just enough extraneous action for it to be interesting without overpowering the main thread of the plot. And the plot is excellent.

DCI Erika Foster has had a tough time of it. She was responsible for the deaths of her husband and four other Police Officers in a drug raid that went wrong. It is something that she is still learning to live with.

Erika, despite being haunted by her past, has her good points. She is the sort of person I would like on my side. She is loyal to her friends and is tenacious; she likes to see things through to the end. She won’t take no for an answer. She won’t be put off by her superiors telling her to leave things alone. On the minus side, she is incredibly stubborn, sometimes dangerously so.

There are quite’ a few of those gut clenching, breath-holding OMG! moments in this book that had me breathlessly turning the pages. I am now a firm fan of this author and looking forward to more in this exciting series.

💕💕💕💕💕

THE AUTHOR: Robert Bryndza is the author of the international #1 bestseller The Girl in the Ice, which is the first in his Detective Erika Foster series. It has sold over one million copies.

The Night Stalker, Dark Water, Last Breath and Cold Blood are the second, third, fourth and fifth books in the series. The sixth book, Deadly Secrets has just been published.

Robert’s books have sold over 2.5 million copies and have been translated into 28 languages.

In addition to writing crime fiction, Robert has published a bestselling series of romantic comedy novels. He is British and lives in Slovakia.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to NetGalley and publishers Bookouture for providing a digital ARC of The Night Stalker for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on my Goodreads.com page https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1625376823