Disbelief by M.T.J. Meijer. #RandomThingsTour #Disbelief

Out Now: #1 Ben Smit Series

Description

Multiple mass-poisonings at pilgrimage sites throughout Europe.

Sophie Pearson, a successful artist, created paintings of the horrific events before they occurred. There are more sketches, implying other attacks are yet to take place. What does Sophie know? Who does she know?  

A serial killer, leaving dead bodies in five-star hotel rooms in the city of Amsterdam.
James Edwards, multi-billionaire and founder of the ALA – the Atheist Liaison Association – has an alibi for the time of the poison attacks. But is it a coincidence he’s in Amsterdam at the time the serial killer hit?

It is up to Chief of Europol Dave Johnson and police consultant and psychic medium Ben Smit to figure out if both cases are connected. They must unravel the ties between past and present, or more lives will be lost.

One thing is for certain – they won’t all make it to the finish line!

My thoughts

This is a story of murder, two kinds – men are being killed their throats slit in their hotel rooms and murder on a huge scale hundreds being poisoned at pilgrimage sites across Europe.

We are told the story from a number of points of view which are easily followed, the voices are quite clear. Ben Smit a psychic who occasionally is called in to help an investigation by Amsterdam Police; Sophie an artist who has been having nightmares prompting her to paint the scenes she has seen; Dave is Head of Murder at Europol he’s working on both cases but those of the men has a personal interest; Emma is a P.A. To James who is CEO to ALA an organisation that has made him richer than he already is from his inheritance.

This is not a whodunnit because we find that out and why early on which makes this an intriguing read. Of course, we don’t learn everything all at once and there are some twists that keep the plot moving along. The authors use of using the characters to work out or understand what is happening makes for suspense in this well paced and tense read. It has a strong paranormal influence, which is not surprising given Ben Smit is a psychic, but it is central and necessary to the plot giving a unique feel, another interesting layer to the story.  It’s fascinating to see how things work, how each crime is worked out and what happens from the different characters point of view.

It’s a compelling read with good characters and the weaving of the two plots is well done by M. J. T. Meijer keeping the tension throughout.

This is the first of a new three-part series: The Ben Smit Series by M. J. T. Meijer. With thanks to Anne Cater for bringing me on board for this blog tour and Crimson Cloak Publishing for providing an eARC. These are my own thoughts and I have not received any form of payment for them.

Random Things Tour

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Information

Language: English

Buy: Amazon UK 

Author:  M.J.T. Meijer was born in 1970 in rural Holland. Although her parents named her Maria, they’ve always called her ‘Tam’ or ‘Tammie’.

Having lived in different countries she speaks several languages and currently resides in Brisbane, Australia, with her husband and son. While living in Dubai and practicing as a hypnotherapist and guest writer for a local wellbeing magazine, Tam formed the inspiration to write Misguided, the first in the Sam Jansen series.

Writing the sequel, Misjudged, seemed a logical next step. Tammie believes she has successfully managed to further develop the characters whilst creating a new story line with as much suspense as Misguided, ensuring both novels make for a riveting read on their own. The third in the series featuring psychic Samantha Jansen is next in line and currently boasts the working title Misconstrued.

Once she finished Disbelief, introducing medium Ben Smit and Dave Johnson, head of the Europol homicide team, Tam decided it should be the first in a series and keenly started work on Disregard. Once that manuscript was polished and finetuned, she took six months to sidestep the genre for a moment and focus on something a little more light-hearted, which resulted in A Spade and a Bottle of Port, a humorous crime with a touch of romance. Tam is currently finishing Disorder, her fifth suspense novel and third in the Ben Smit series.

Tam’s work is themed on the balance of light and dark, of twisted minds and loving souls, of murder and chaos and karmic consequences creeping into people’s lives, forcing them to change and adapt.

Initially, it was Tam’s ambition to write the novel she herself would love to read, and that continues to be her main driving force.

In November 2016, she submitted her short story Perception, to an online literary magazine’s annual competition open to writers from all Commonwealth countries. After the judges reviewed the thousands of entries, her work was shortlisted for inclusion in the anthology.

​A passionate writer, she plans on writing for many more years to come.

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