The Girls Next Door (Detective Eden Berrisford 1)

Author/Guide: Mel Sherratt

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: One warm spring evening, five teenagers meet in a local park. Only four will come out alive.

ISBN: B01M02NTYA
Genre: Crime

Comment

What you need to know before your trail

Six months after the stabbing of sixteen-year-old Deanna Barker, someone is coming after the teenagers of Stockleigh, as a spate of vicious assaults rocks this small community. Revenge for Deanna? Or something more?

Detective Eden Berrisford is locked into a race against time to catch the twisted individual behind the attacks – but when her own niece, Jess Mountford, goes missing, the case gets personal.

With the kidnapper threatening Jess’s life, can Eden bring back her niece to safety? Or will the people of Stockleigh be forced to mourn another daughter…?

Locations

Reset

Travel Guide

Stockleigh

Fictional and just as well. A new crime scene setting for Mel and some gripping teenage drama playing out on the pages.

There’s something unsettling and uncomfortable about teenage gangs hanging around in parks and when one doesn’t come out alive, even more so.

The really unsetting setting here is when the investigation into that night looks into the consequences into the family and those affected.

The dark underworld that only teenagers inhabit is the one you walk into here. With your eyes shut, and one eye being forced open one by one. But what do you see through the darkness?

The booktrail features Stoke since this is where the author is from.

Booktrailer Review

Clare: thebooktrailer

Two things which stood out for me on this novel – this new detective is a new direction for Mel and after this I’m keen to read more. Having read the Estate series, this is another type of novel altogether . Just as gritty but with an underlying current of discomfort and unsettling insights into the world of teenagers and one in particular.

This detective is excuse the pun, taking no prisoners either. She’s hard talking and is not one of those messed up ones I usually read about. She’s got her head screwed on and is good at her job. Her closest relationship is with her daughter, rather than the bottle.

Not a booktrail as such as well even if Stockbridge was real, you’d not want to go to the park there that’s for sure. Mel has produced some great books in her race up the crime fiction ladder and I will definitely be picking up the next one.