The Prequel – IN THE FRAME, (Anna Burgin #3)
This tale was a welcome e-freebie which introduces us to budding photography student Anna, accused of stealing two expensive cameras from the stores. A chance meeting with another student, Danny, gives her the only friend who professes to believe in her as she battles to clear her name and understand the skulduggery behind the frame-up. It is a fun piece, although labelled #3, giving the background to the peculiar friendship that develops between the two characters that become fondly, and frustratingly, friends of the reader.
Then COLD PRESS, Anna Burgin #1 Reviewed 20/10/2018.
https://bookpostmortem.wordpress.com/…/cold-press-anna-burgin-1-david-bradwell/
followed by OUT OF THE RED (Anna Burgin #2)
The enigmatic Clare Woodbrook reappears in the lives of Danny and Anna, to the latter’s resentment as it is evident that Danny has always been smitten with his ex-boss, whose position in the investigation unit of the Echo newspaper he now holds.
DCI Graham March is alive and well and reinstated in the Metropolitan Police where he can manipulate evidence to suit his own agendas, with his fingers very much into all sorts of illegal pies including people trafficking. His determination to exact revenge on Danny is matched only by Danny’s pursuit of the bent copper, except that, without Clare’s help and dubious resources, Danny would not have a prayer against the ruthless cop with friends in high places.
The series completed, presumably, by FADE TO SILENCE. (Anna Burgin #4) although I would not place money on it.
Clare Woodbrook, the mysterious manipulator of millionaire gangsters, semi-good and mega-bad alike. Walks a tightrope in her negotiations with several forces from the Balkans and Germany, and their go between, DCI Graham March, who smugly plays one of them against the other. And, once again, Danny and Anna are caught in the middle.
When a banker is murdered, March quickly arrests the widow, but Danny is not convinced. Hounded by his Echo editor to leave his vendetta against March alone and bring in copy for other investigations, he and Anna try following the cop to find out what he is really doing. He in turn employs some pitiless killers to get rid of the pair.
And in the meanwhile, a huge shipment of weapons is heading for Britain…
Frustratingly, and almost beyond belief, Danny is still unaware that Anna is madly in love with him, convinced the relationship is strictly platonic. In desperation, Anna dates a seemingly accidentally-met man who has orders to get rid of her. (A spoiler, I suppose, but, come on! Who wouldn’t guess?) Still, the whole series is riddled (haha) with twists, so who knows?
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