Savage Children

Third in a cracking Thriller/Adventure/Crime series by Peter Boland. The characters just spark off one another.

Amazon UK link

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Book description 

Children are disappearing from London parks. Caught on CCTV, they go in but never come out again…

Days after each disappearance, the distraught parents receive a hand-drawn picture of their child as an angel. A sign they’ll never see them again. The police have no clues or leads. All they have is a nickname for the abductor – the Archangel.
When Savage’s neighbour’s ten-year-old son Callum becomes a victim, he vows to find him, and catch this Archangel. Savage has his headstrong friend Tannaz to help him. This time it’s going to take more than her brilliant computer skills to find the truth. They’ll have to enlist the help of some new friends – and some old enemies.

As more children go missing, Savage realises the Archangel is a formidable adversary. Clever, elusive and terrifying. Savage also has the police on his back, watching his every move. The deeper Savage becomes involved, the more he realises all is not what it seems…


My review - 

Savage and his side-kick, the computer-whiz Tannaz, are on the search for someone kidnapping children. None have been returned and there are real fears for their lives. They become involved because the lad who lives next door to Savage is abducted. Police arrest him under suspicion as he often played football with the lad after school. This is a great story – Savage’s SAS training means he doesn’t back down even with a gang, and Tannaz is an expert hacker. She finds evidence but they can’t pass it to the police as she shouldn’t have it! It’s a rollicking good crime story and very exciting. I love this series.

About the author

After studying to be an architect, Pete realised he wasn't very good at it. He liked designing buildings he just couldn't make them stand up, which is a bit of a handicap in an industry that likes to keep things upright. So he switched to advertising, writing ads for everything from cruise lines to zombie video games.

After becoming disillusioned with working in ad agencies, he switched to writing thriller novels (or was it because he just wanted to work at home in his pyjamas?). He soon realised there's no magic formula. You just have to put one word in front of the other (and keep doing that for about a year). It also helps if you can resist the lure of surfing, playing Nintendo Switch with his son, watching America's Next Top Model with his daughter and drinking beer in a garden chair.

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Just a thought 

A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books
― Andrei Tarkovsky

Savage Games

A worthy follow up to Savage Lies - and I think it's even better. Well developed characters and a cunning story.

Amazon UK link

Amazon US link

Book description

Deep in the New Forest, a body is hidden in the branches of a towering fir tree in an area known as Dead Maids Wood. When John Savage learns that the body belonged to an old school friend, he sets out to discover who was responsible.
 
Together with brilliant computer hacker Tannaz, he discovers his friend was down on his luck, living among those who society would rather forget - the dregs, the desperate and the homeless. Entering this dark and hidden world, Savage soon discovers that the death of his friend was just the tip of the iceberg...

My review -

Savage Games is that difficult to pull off second in a series. I loved Savage Lies and I think this is even better. Ex-SAS John Savage, still battling his own PTSD demons, determines to right some serious wrongs after an old friend from school is found dead. The plotting is tight, the pace fast and the characters are believable. For such a serious subject it’s surprisingly funny too. Savage and his assistant and IT expert Tannaz have clever mouths and don’t know when to button them. I cringed a few times expecting the worst but these two can fend for themselves. Even though it’s a second book, it would read well as a stand-alone. I’m now a huge fan of these characters and look forward to more from John Savage. Erm, I mean Peter Boland!

About the author

After studying to be an architect, Pete realised he wasn't very good at it. He liked designing buildings he just couldn't make them stand up, which is a bit of a handicap in an industry that likes to keep things upright. So he switched to advertising, writing ads for everything from cruise lines to zombie video games.

After meeting his wife Shalini and having two awesome children (their words), he was amazed when she sat and actually wrote a book. Then another and another. They were good too. Really good. So he thought, I'll have a go at that.

He soon realised there's no magic formula. You just have to put one word in front of the other (and keep doing that for about a year). It also helps if you can resist the lure of surfing, playing Nintendo Switch with his son, watching America's Next Top Model with his daughter and drinking beer in a garden chair.

~~~

Just a thought 

 You cannot open a book without learning something ― Confucius

Peter Boland

A first book in the thriller genre for this author and it's an absolute cracker!

Savage Lies

Amazon.com link

My review -

When you have an ex-SAS member with a wrong to right, you know you’re going to be in for an adventure and a thriller. All you need is for it to be a good story, well told. Here we have it all. John Savage thinks he knows what’s going on when a girl disappears. We think we know, too. This is a masterful bit of storytelling and I really enjoyed the way it unfolded as we got to the truth. By 90% of the novel I thought it was all over and we were having the ends wrapped up for us but the action never stopped. Highly recommended.