Review: Cold Press (Anna Burgin #1) by David Bradwell

Print Length: 338 pages

Publisher: Lyrical Press (May 13, 2017)

From Goodreads.com: It's the winter of 1993, and Clare Woodbrook is the enigmatic head of the Special Investigations Department at Britain's leading daily tabloid. Her exposés are legendary, but she's not without her enemies. Now, on the verge of unveiling her biggest ever scoop, she arranges to meet her researcher Danny Churchill, to reveal all over lunch. 

But Clare never shows, and later that night her car is found abandoned on the hard shoulder of the M25. Worse still, the police investigation is being headed up by DCI Graham March - the embodiment of police corruption and the subject of one of Clare's current investigations.

Danny sets out to find Clare, and enlists the help of his spiky flatmate - fashion photographer Anna Burgin. But they soon realise that nobody can be trusted - especially the police. As the search becomes ever more desperate, suddenly their own lives are very much on the line.

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My Rating: 2 stars out of 5

It didn't matter how many times I tried, I just could not get into this story. 

To begin with, not only are the characters all very one dimensional, but the story-line manages to be both implausible and hard to follow. The hard to follow part is easy to explain - this story bounces around between different points of view without warning. Sometimes even within the same chapter. It made it hard to keep track of just who was telling the story. 

What makes it implausible is the way two people can just completely take over a police investigation and people just give them information when they have nothing to go on. Time and time again, Danny and Anna go places and question people in relation to a police matter and people never ask them why. There are some real problems when it comes to the handling of confidential information, and I just couldn't get past it. A bed and breakfast owner gives out information on a former guest? And lets them search their room? A "secure" mail facility gives someone access more than once without proper ID? Even with the "cat and mouse" game that was supposedly going on, it seemed entirely way too easy for these two to gain access to information they should never have seen. 

And then there was the ending. Which I had hoped would redeem this story. Nope. And while I am sure there are others who will love this story, it just was not for me. 

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

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                                   Cold Press is available from Amazon.com

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