Mexico Street by Simone Buchholz translated by Rachel Ward #Review #Giveaway

My thanks go out to Orenda Books for the chance to be on the blog tour for Simone Buchholtz's Mexico Street. This is the third  book featuring Chastity Riley, the first being Blue Night and the second being Beton Rouge. You can read my reviews of Blue Night here and Beton Rouge here.

I also have a great giveaway with the chance to win a print copy of Mexico Street. Details on how to enter are at the foot of this post. 
 

Hamburg state prosecutor Chastity Riley investigates a series of arson attacks on cars across the city, which leads her to a startling and life-threatening discovery involving criminal gangs and a very illicit love story…

Night after night, cars are set alight across the German city of Hamburg, with no obvious pattern, no explanation and no suspect.

Until, one night, on Mexico Street, a ghetto of high-rise blocks in the north of the city, a Fiat is torched. Only this car isn’t empty. The body of Nouri Saroukhan – prodigal son of the Bremen clan – is soon discovered, and the case becomes a homicide.

Public prosecutor Chastity Riley is handed the investigation, which takes her deep into a criminal underground that snakes beneath the whole of Germany. And as details of Nouri’s background, including an illicit relationship with the mysterious Aliza, emerge, it becomes clear that these are not random attacks, and there are more on the cards…

Simone Buchholz's series featuring Chastity Riley has a unique tone. It is very much in the crime genre but it has a literary style which distances the reader from the action. It is as if you are observing from a vantage point, just to the side. Chastity herself is a great creation, with a dry view on life. At times, she may seem disconnected from what she is observing but you come to realise that she is a complicated character with a hard shell but a much softer centre. 

    Through the darkest of stories, you come to uncover themes of alienation, women's rights and treatment by their family, people as a commodity, violence, immigration, gang mentality. It is a shortish read at 200 pages but nevertheless, conveys through its understated style some emotional and at times, horrifying moments. This is a series which is well worth reading. Translated from the original German by Rachel Ward, it is a distinctive read.

In short:More Chastity Riley to savour.

                                                                              About the Author

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg. In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award, and second place in the German Crime Fiction Prize, for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.

You can follow Simone here: Website   |  Twitter

Book links:  Amazon UK 

Thanks to Simone, Karen Sullivan and Anne Cater of Orenda Books for a copy of the book and a place on the tour.

Check out these brilliant bloggers!

Giveaway (UK only)

 

To win a print copy of Mexico Street, just Follow and Retweet the pinned Tweet at @bookslifethings and good luck!

 Closing Date is 15th March 2020 and there is one winner.

*Terms and Conditions – UK only.  The winner will be selected at random via Tweetdraw from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.