No Cure for Death by Colin Garrow

3^rd January 2023.

What a terrific story to start the New Year. In his fifth outing, taxi driver and sleuth Terry Bell faces his most challenging investigation to date. His best friend from school, who disappeared 27 years ago, is back and leaving cryptic notes that suggest he has a hit list of ten people to murder.

Is Terry on the list? He feels partly responsible for his friend’s disappearance. Even with the help of his partner Carol, and DI Brown, he can’t prevent the murders. His only hope is to get one step ahead, but when the clues stop, is Terry next?

From the start to the finish, the pace never lets up as Terry is pulled from one murder to the next with barely time to work out why his old friend is suddenly killing people. Where has he been for the past 27 years? Why is he killing these people?

The tension is palpable as the body count rises and the need to get ahead of the game becomes imperative. Calling on help from friends in the community, Terry starts to make headway. But each step forward seems to lead to another victim.

Written with great style and humour, the author deftly led me on an exciting trail that kept me turning pages to read just one more chapter. The twist towards the end only served to highlight the author’s mastery of the novel, which is easily the best in the series so far.

Terry, Carol and all the players are engaging, fully developed characters that are well-drawn and colourfully portrayed. The humour keeps the narrative upbeat, but it doesn’t disguise or hide the tension and moments of self-doubt that reveal just how frightening it can be when you’re pursuing a killer – especially one who seems to have all bases covered.

While you don’t need to read the previous novels in the series to enjoy this one, you’ll miss out on so much if you do.

Description

A missing person. A name from the past. A trail of brutal murders.

When taxi-driving sleuth Terry Bell is asked to track down a missing person, he must face the possibility that his own actions twenty-seven years earlier may have led to the disappearance of a school friend. But the missing man is on a killing spree and the canny cabbie must solve a series of clues to find the scene of the next murder. Can he reach the victims before the killer strikes again?

Together with his partner Carol and cop-pal Inspector Brown, Terry is thwarted at every turn as the killer stays one step ahead of them. As the body count rises, Terry and Carol try to work out the killer’s motive before the killer reaches name number ten – Terry Bell.