The Keeper by Johana Gustawsson translated by Maxim Jakubowski ** Blog Tour Review**

I am thrilled to be reviewing Johana Gustasson's latest thriller, The Keeper. The Queen of French Noir has written a sequel to the international bestseller, Block 46 and you can read my review of Block 46  here.

Next in the award-winning Roy & Castells series, Murders in London and Sweden lead the team back to Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel…

Whitechapel, 1888: London is bowed under Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror. London 2015: actress Julianne Bell is abducted in a case similar to the terrible Tower Hamlets murders of some ten years earlier, and harking back to the Ripper killings of a century before. 

Falkenberg, Sweden, 2015: a woman’s body is found mutilated in a forest, her wounds identical to those of the Tower Hamlets victims. With the man arrested for the Tower Hamlets crimes already locked up, do the new killings mean he has a dangerous accomplice, or is a copy-cat serial killer on the loose? 

Profiler Emily Roy and true-crime writer Alexis Castells again find themselves drawn into an intriguing case, with personal links that turn their world upside down… 

My Thoughts 

With meticulous plotting and great characterisation, Johana Gustawsson has written another book in her series featuring Emily Roy and Alexis Castells which defies you to read it. At times, it is very difficult to read with gruesome scenes which make you just want to look away. Normally, I would do just that. But in this case, so effortless is the quality of the writing, that I kept on reading. 

    I particularly enjoyed the scenes with the profiler, Emily Roy. She kept up the pressure throughout and asked all the questions which seemed to be unsayable. It was an intriguing but brutal story which carried me along to its conclusion and which seemed to take the concept of 'noir' to another level. It was dark and brutal but always measured against that was everyday life. I am delighted to hear that Johanna is writing a third installment. There is so much to understand about her characters and as we all know, it is the characters who drive home a great book. 

In short: Mesmerising murder in abundance.
 

About the Author 

Born in 1978 in Marseille and with a degree in political science, Johana Gustawsson has worked as a journalist for the French press and television. She married a Swede and now lives in London. She was the co-author of a bestseller, On se retrouvera, published by Fayard Noir in France, whose television adaptation drew over 7 million viewers in June 2015. Her debut, Block 46, was an award-winning, international bestseller, with Keeper following suit. She is working on the next book in the Roy & Castells series.

You can follow Johana here:  Twitter  |   Website  |  Facebook.

Book links:  Amazon UK

Thanks to Karen Sullivan and Anne Cater of Orenda Books for a copy of the book and a place on the Blog Tour.

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