Cause and Effect – Vice Plagues the City (Kind Hearts and Martinets #1) by Pete Adams

Book blurb

A self-labelled enigma, Detective Inspector Jack Austin is at once miserable and amusing, melancholy and motivated. Running the Community Police Unit from his deck chair, D.I. Austin is known for his ability to solve crimes out of the blue.

Trying to work cases while struggling with his mental issues, Austin deals with a variety of major crimes, including bicycle theft. But when the case of an executed police officer lands on his desk, he accidentally uncovers a malevolent scheme.

Can he discover who is behind it all – and keep what’s left of his sanity?

My thoughts

This is the first in a series of five books in the Kind Hearts and Martinets Series which has Jack Austin as the lead character. The rest of the series comes out in the next few months so do keep your eyes peeled for them.

Jack Austin is a seemingly chauvinistic, weird and somewhat scarred DI who deals with his mental issues by bringing his dog to work with him – it has official approval; giving people nicknames and referring to old films, TV series and characters often confusing his colleagues many of whom are too young to remember them.

I felt like one of them as I smiled at those I remembered, raised an eyebrow, or two, at some of his rather bawdier remarks and laughed at much of what was happening. This is a book with upfront and in your face humour. The style of writing is unique which many readers will love and will be eager for more.

Within all of this is a terrific storyline and whilst yes it is funny it is also quite hard hitting in places. It is Jack’s reaction to what happens that makes the story engrossing and I really enjoyed that. This is a book that may take a little settling into but I felt it was well worth it.

Blog Tour

My thanks to Emma at Damppebblesblogtours for the invite to the Cause and Effect Blog Tour and Next Chapter Publishing for the eBook. Do take a spin ’round the rest of the tour..

#CauseandEffect #KindHeartsandMartinets  @nextchapterpb@damppebbles #damppebblesblogtours

Information

Published by Next Chapter Publishing in ebook and paperback formats on 17th June 2019.

Buy:

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Author

Pete Adams is an architect with a practice in Portsmouth, UK, and from there he has, over forty years, designed and built buildings across England and Wales. Pete took up writing after listening to a radio interview of the writer Michael Connolly whilst driving home from Leeds. A passionate reader, the notion of writing his own novel was compelling, but he had always been told you must have a mind map for the book; Jeez, he could never get that.

Et Voila, Connolly responding to a question, said he never can plan a book, and starts with an idea for chapter one and looks forward to seeing where it would lead. Job done, and that evening Pete started writing and the series, Kind Hearts and Martinets, was on the starting blocks. That was some eight years ago, and hardly a day has passed where Pete has not worked on his writing, and currently, is halfway through his tenth book, has a growing number of short stories, one, critically acclaimed and published by Bloodhound, and has written and illustrated a series of historical nonsense stories called, Whopping Tales.

Pete describes himself as an inveterate daydreamer, and escapes into those dreams by writing crime thrillers with a thoughtful dash of social commentary. He has a writing style shaped by his formative years on an estate that re-housed London families after WWII, and his books have been likened to the writing of Tom Sharpe; his most cherished review, “made me laugh, made me cry, and made me think”.

Pete lives in Southsea with his partner, and Charlie the star-struck Border terrier, the children having flown the coop, and has 3 beautiful granddaughters who will play with him so long as he promises not to be silly.

Twitter: @Peteadams8
Facebook: PeteAdams