Review: The Last Victim (DCI Rachel King #5) by Helen H. Durrant

                                                           

Print Length: 221 pages

Publisher: Joffe Books (December 2, 2021)

From Goodreads.com: A two-month-old baby is missing. James’s parents left him with a babysitter while they went out for dinner. But when they get home, there’s no sign of baby or sitter.

This is the last thing DCI Rachel King wants to hear on her last night of maternity leave. But worse is to come. The missing infant belongs to Scott Agnew, alleged member of Manchester drug-dealing ring, the Trio.

Then the elderly mother of another Trio boss disappears. Rachel knows that if these are retaliation kidnappings, things will only go from bad to terrible.

And guess who everyone thinks is behind this? The prime suspect is Rachel’s partner Jed, ex-gangland boss and father of her youngest child.

  

                                                         *******************

My Rating: 1 star out of 5

What in the heck happened to this series? It is like the author has just given up! I thought the last installment with Rachel being unable to focus because she was pregnant was bad, but this one was even worse. There were so many typos, and other stupid mistakes (I will focus on those here in a second) that it made me wonder if this novel had even been written by the same author or if she had employed a ghost writer for some reason. 

Let me break down some of the mistakes:

In one of the earlier chapters, Jed makes a joke, telling Rachel that if she was worried there was "another woman" that she didn't have to be because there wasn't. But by chapter thirty-four the author seems to have forgotten this conversation took place because it occurs to her there might be another woman and it hits her "like a bombshell" and she wonders why it hadn't occurred to her before. Maybe because it's already been addressed? 

In Chapter Thirty-Nine a suspect introduces his attorney, a man that Jed had told Rachel was also his attorney on a property deal. Nothing happens. Her supervisor comes in, states his name and the attorney states his and suddenly it dawns on Rachel. In fact, it comes as a "surprise" to her. Which made me wonder why exactly that was considering you know, she had just been told who the man was only a few sentences before. 

Chapter Fifty-three has her partner Elywn telling her that the people behind the events had been planning their coup for awhile. To which Rachel immediately not even two sentences later thinks to herself how they must have been planning it for awhile. Yes. We are aware. Elwyn just said as much. 

And finally the biggest one for me. A young man was brutally beaten with a baseball bat, then had his throat slit. Details you would think anyone could remember. But not this author apparently who later refers to the young victim as having been shot. Seriously? You can describe in detail the beating and the murder while it's happening, but then can't remember the actual cause of death? 

Now that I've spoken about the different mistakes that plagued this novel, let me talk a bit about the plot itself. It started off strong, with the kidnapping of an infant child, a grown man, and an elderly woman all connected to the "golden trio" of mobsters that were running the drug scene. At times, it seemed obvious who the perpetrator was, but of course as with most of the books by this author, things are not always what they seem, and for every two steps forward the team took, they took about ten steps back. 

And when the truth was finally revealed? Well, I can't say that I was surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised. It seemed like such an easy cop-out (no pun intended) of the story-line to have those people involved. And honestly, I would go so far as to say that by ending it the way that the author chose to, it left a lot of things feeling very unfinished, especially one aspect that Rachel could have used to her advantage later on, but for some reason decided against. 

I should also take a moment to point out that I am still really confused about Amy's character. Once again, she is complaining about being given "background" work instead of "field" work, but not only does she never ask Rachel about being given more field experience (she simply assumes Rachel is jealous of her for some reason and mouths off to anyone who will listen including their colleagues), she is also just a flaky character. She knows they are involved in a series case, and she either leaves early, or doesn't come in at all. That type of behavior really isn't conducive to getting a promotion which she claims she wants. 

According to Amazon, this is a six book series, and I already have the last one on my kindle so I will be starting it tonight. I am hoping that the author manages to return this series to its former glory so that Rachel and her crew can go out with a bang instead of being subjected to more of whatever this was.