Tom Kilgannon hides a secret past. He is in witness protection after working undercover to ensure gangster Dean Foley ended up behind bars. Now his skills are required again and he is sent to prison to befriend a convicted child killer and find their graves.
Except the prison is the one where Dean is currently residing…
The tension and anticipation of whether Tom and Dean will confront each other is created really effectively. Tom begs for help from the officer running the operation but police corruption means he is stuck in prison at the mercy of the inmates and guards who are mostly on Foley’s payroll.
The Sinner was a deeply fascinating glimpse into prison life and the psychological strength needed to be an undercover cop. There was not a great deal of violence with the exception of one fight scene where Tom is attacked by two inmates. For the most part, the violence isn’t too graphic or occurs outside the scene which leaves it to the imagination of the reader instead.
There is an hilarious line on the first page about UKIP and I really enjoyed Martyn Waites’ tone and style of narrative. There are some parts set in the past to show the relationships between characters which affect action in the present.
Tom is an interesting character and has obviously made some difficult choices in life as part of his undercover role. He has an honesty and integrity that have resulted in him doing the wrong things but for the right reasons to catch criminals.
References are made to events in the past and after finishing The Sinner I discovered it was book 2 in the Tom Kilgannon series. However, this works perfectly well as a stand alone novel.
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