The Heights by Parker Bilal @Parker_Bilal @blackthornbks @RandomTTours #TheHeights #BlogTour

The Heights by Parker Bilal was published on 3rd September 2020 by Black Thorn Books. My thanks to the publisher for the review copy and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me on to the blog tour. 

What starts with the gruesome discovery of a severed head on the Tube soon becomes personal for former DI Cal Drake. After one betrayal too many, Drake has abandoned the police force to become a private detective. He’s teamed up with enigmatic forensic pathologist Dr Rayhana Crane and it’s not long before the case leads them to the darkest corners of the nation’s capital and in dangerously close contact with an international crime circuit, a brutal local rivalry and a very personal quest for retribution. With the murder victim tied to Drake’s past, his new future is about to come under threat.

‘Praise for The Divinities: Terrific crime fiction rooted in geopolitics’ - Sunday Times ‘

Bilal tells the story with ferocious, exhilarating energy . . . essential reading’ - Daily Telegraph 

‘A firecracker of a novel that delves deep into the rot infecting both politics and big business’ - ERIC VAN LUSTBADER, author of The Bourne Legacy 

‘Told with a delicate elegance . . . It promises to be a fine series’ - Daily Mail

My Thoughts: 

The Heights by Parker Bilal is the first book I have read by this author but the second in the Crane and Drake London Crime series. It read well as a standalone so don't worry if like me you haven't read the first. However I certainly do want to backtrack and for completion sake follow this series through in full. 

The Heights features DI Cal Drake and Dr Rayhana Crane as our main characters. Polar opposites in many ways but similar in others, both with their flaws which made them all the more interesting to read about and learn a little of their back stories. 

When a severed head turns up on the tube things start to take a more sinister turn and all whilst a student is missing. The word is that the head might belong to someone from DI Cal Drake's past. The Heights is a story with multiple strands that is gripping. It has a plot, pace and tension that just grew and grew. 

I would say that London is also a character here. The author must know it well, encapsulated is the hustle and bustle and an exploration of the darker side. The bits that people don't care or dare to imagine. All envisioned insightfully and wonderfully dropped right on to the page. It is also full of the side that is multi cultural and interesting. 

I will most certainly read more of this series, in fact I look forward to it and can't wait. 

About the Author: 

Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub, the critically acclaimed literary novelist. He is the author of the Makana Investigations series, the third of which, The Ghost Runner, was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. The Divinities, the first in his Crane and Drake London crime series, was published in 2019. Born in London, he has lived in a number of places, including the UK, Denmark, Spain and, currently, the Netherlands. 

@Parker_Bilal | jamalmahjoub.com

Please do also take a look at the other stops on the blog tour.