A French footballer has recently transferred and he and his wife are away on a trip when they home is targeted by thieves. The burglary takes on an added dimension when the footballer’s stepson arrives home with his bodyguard. The guard is shot dead and the boy is kidnapped. Can DCI Roscoe and DS Roy find Marcel before the kidnappers harm him…?
It Never Rains is the 6th book in the Roscoe and Roy series of police procedurals. It works perfectly well as a standalone book and there are no spoilers about earlier cases.
I loved this book. The action and drama start straight away and the pace doesn’t let up. Roscoe and Roy are dedicated officers and struggling to handle an overbearing colleague in a professional manner as he disparages their team. The police are anxious to resolve the case quickly due to the high publicity and the risk to Marcel’s life.
As well as the police investigation, we also see the experience of the kidnappers and Marcel. This really ramps up the tension as we fear for the boy’s safety. I felt desperately sorry for Marcel as he is held against his will, has epilepsy, and barely knows any English so is even more isolated and vulnerable.
There are plenty of twists and I kept guessing at who I thought was behind the kidnapping (I was wrong!) The writing is easy to read and I felt totally immersed in the lives of the characters. It was a surprisingly quick read, but I admit I couldn’t put it down!
It Never Rains is an excellent police procedural with a fab lead detective duo.
It Never Rains
It never rains but it pours . . .
When a ruthless gang burgles the home of a Premier League football player, DCI Gavin Roscoe and DS Sunita Roy suddenly have a murder and a kidnap on their hands.
The footballer’s stepson, Marcel, is taken from the palatial property whilst it is being ransacked, and his bodyguard is shot, stone cold dead.
To help them with their task, DI Parkes from the National Crime Agency’s Kidnap Unit joins the investigation but he has very different ideas about how the operation should be run.
While rain lashes the surrounding countryside, tempers rise, as do the flood waters.
Can the police track down this dangerous gang, unmask its malevolent ringleader, and reunite the boy with his family before it’s too late?
IT NEVER RAINS is the sixth book in the detectives Roy and Roscoe crime fiction series by Tony Bassett.
Tony Bassett is a former journalist who worked on regional and national newspapers in Britain for more than 40 years. He mainly reported on crime, show business, human interest and consumer topics. Now retired, he writes crime fiction.
Tony is best known for his series of novels set in the West Midlands. They feature Detective Chief Inspector Gavin Roscoe, an experienced detective and family man, and his sergeant, law graduate and resourceful problem-solver Sunita Roy.
The fifth book in the series, Heir To Murder, was judged first in the Mystery and Suspense (Police Procedurals) category in the American Fiction Awards in June 2024. The novel concerns a peer of the realm’s son found axed to death after a row over loud music. Two years earlier, his older brother mysteriously disappeared while hiking in Spain. Here is the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CPFNJNQJ
The series is published by The Book Folks, an independent London publisher specialising in crime fiction. Other books in the series (in order) are: Murder On Oxford Lane, The Crossbow Stalker, Murder Of A Doctor and Out for Revenge.
His stand-alone thriller Seat 97, about a man shot dead at a London concert hall, has also been published by The Book Folks. Two further works (the crime novel Smile Of The Stowaway and the spy novel The Lazarus Charter) were published by The Conrad Press.
Tony first developed a love of writing at the age of nine when he produced a junior school magazine. A few years later, his local vicar in Tunbridge Wells staged his play about the Biblical story of Naboth’s Vineyard. At Hull University, Tony was judged Time-Life Magazine student journalist of the year in 1971. Tony, who has five grown-up children, is a Life Member of the National Union of Journalists. He lives in South-East London with his partner Lin
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