The manager of a vineyard arrives at work and checks over the premises as he does every morning. But on this day he hears a baby crying and his search finds a woman’s body with a distraught toddler beside her. Both are wearing angel wings. DI Lexi Bennett is called to the scene and a murder investigation begins…
The Innocent Angels is the third book in the Lexi Bennett series. I have previously read and reviewed the first two books, The Girls on Chalk Hill and The Girl’s Last Cry.
Lexi and her team are instantly under pressure as the vineyard owner complains about the financial cost of loss of production. The same man states he doesn’t recognise the victim but the following day declares the baby is his own. But another man also claims the baby is his so Lexi thinks there is a personal motive for the murder. Until another woman is discovered dead with her child beside her…
The writing has such a natural feel that the characters and plot felt authentic and I was instantly drawn into the scenario. The suspects were easy to dislike especially as further secrets are revealed. Drama and pace develop quite rapidly with plenty of twists as the case progresses. The involvement of young children has a strong emotional pull which engages us with the plot and makes us root for the police’s success in ending the killer’s activities.
The Innocent Angels is another engaging book in this police thriller series and I’m definitely loking forward to the next book.
A body in a cave. A family full of secrets. And time running out before the killer strikes again…
The case is one of the strangest Detective Lexi Bennett has ever seen. In a cave beneath a vineyard, ayoung woman wearing angel wings lies dead, her baby daughter crawling nearby.
Among the green vines and the rolling hills, Lexi finds no shortage of motives. The owner of the vineyard claims to be the father of the victim’s child, and his wife was clearly furious with her rival.
But when another woman is found dead in angel wings, her baby abandoned beside her, Lexi is certain the killer is following a strange and personal ritual.
Under pressure to arrest the obvious suspect and out on a limb, Lexi ignores her boss and follows her gut, deep into the past. When she’s attacked, she knows she’s on the right track. But the killer already has his next victim in his sights… and Lexi will have to risk everything to stop him.
For fans of Angela Marsons, Karin Slaughter and Val McDermid, The Innocent Angels will keep you hooked from the first page to the final shocking reveal.
Author Bio
In 2016, I entered and won Bloody Scotland’s Pitch Perfect competition. This secured me an agent and a three-book publishing deal with Orion for my police procedural series set in the world of tattoos and tattooing. My first novel, The Tattoo Thief, was translated into 15 languages, was a No 1 bestseller in Italy and is the first instalment of the internationally acclaimed Tattoo Thief trilogy. I also write in collaboration with my brother Nick Higgins – Canelo has published our action thriller series set in Afghanistan, Death In Kabul and Death in Helmand. Now I’m embarking on a fresh crime series with Bookouture. It’s set in Canterbury, featuring DI Lexi Bennett, newly appointed to lead the Major Incident Team after a spell working with the FBI’s specialist serial killer unit.
I divide my time between London and Edinburgh, where I am a co-founder of the Edinburgh Writers’ Forum, providing professional development and networking for writers.
To learn more about me and the books I write, visit my website at www.alisonbelsham.com
