Keep Her Close

When I reviewed M.J. Ford's first book, Hold My Hand, I said that I hoped it wasn't the last we would see of DS Josie Masters so I'm really pleased that Keep Her Close is the second in the series featuring that very character.

Having (sort of) bounced back from what happened in book one, a new case is set to keep Jo on her toes. A young student has gone missing from her college at Oxford and Jo is called on to investigate along with new recruit to the team, Jack Pryce. But soon matters escalate as two more students disappear and it appears that it's actually a series of kidnappings.

What I like about these stories is that they are police procedurals but with a bit more oomph. For instance, there's a real twist in the tale, in fact there show more are two. One I couldn't have seen coming at all, relating to why the kidnappings are happening. The other I only saw just before it was revealed, and after I had pinned the crimes on somebody else entirely.

Keep Her Close is so well plotted. I loved how it all came together in a complex and unexpected fashion. And I really love the characters. Josie is a bit of a loose cannon to be honest, but a good cop. The rest of the team are excellent complementary characters and it was great to see them return from book one. I liked Jack too, and thought he was a really interesting addition to the team.

Although you can read this as a standalone, I would recommend reading book one first as you then get to read about Josie's previous case and how it's impacted on her. I'm hoping she gets a third outing. I feel sure she will, especially given that fantastic ending.

Keep Her Close is a thrilling and gripping crime novel. I really enjoyed it. show less

DI Josie Masters has just about recovered from a series of difficult events when she is plunged into a new case. A rich, well-connected student has disappeared from one of the Oxford colleges. Her boss however has Josie investigating a supposed hit and run of a girl who was a cleaner at another college. When a third girl disappears from Somerville college it suddenly becomes clear that someone is sending a message to Josie and that someone is connected to her past.
This is not the first book that MJ Ford has written about Detective Josie Masters and at times it seemed the backstory was super important. However a convoluted plot does get resolved in the end. There are lots of red herrings and blind alleyways which made the book really show more quite enjoyable, the whole plot line about drugs among the students was brought up and then proved to be nothing. Yes, it is a very predictable conclusion and there are glaring gaps in the narrative but as far as police procedurals go, it's one of the better ones I've read in the past year. show less

4.5

Book source ~ NetGalley

DS Josie Masters has had a terrible year but at least she saved her young nephew after he was kidnapped by a killer clown. Yeah. I don’t know what that story is about because I missed book 1, but I intend to go back and read it. Now Josie is working on some missing persons cases that are starting to look like more than just a missing persons issue and now her supervisor is pulling her off the cases when it appears that there is some kind of connection to her. What the heck is going on?

Well-written and twisty enough for any mystery enthusiast this tale kept me glued to my seat. Josie is flawed and yet a great detective. Does she make some questionable choices? Oh, hell yeah. Do I want to slap her upside the show more head sometimes? Definitely. But I like her anyway. Secondary characters are great and the world is interesting. I need to go back and read book 1 and then I’ll be all set for a book 3 with Josie and the crew. show less

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

This is the sequel to a previous novel featuring Detective Sergeant Josie Masters, and we heard more than I think was ideal about the events of that book during the course of this story. Josie and her colleagues investigate the disappearance of an Oriel student, and then a member of Jesus College staff is found dead. After that a second student disappears and Josie wonders about the link between these events.

I found this a gripping and fast-paced read, although Josie did seem to get away with disobeying orders and going off on tangents to a surprising extent. I would be keen to read more by this author. The ending was satisfying, although I'm not sure I completely show more understood Anna's role in what happened. show less

This is the second book in a series featuring DS Josie Masters, but there are enough references to her personal and professional history to make it easy to read as a standalone novel. Although she is clearly dedicated to her job, Josie is a complex, flawed character; she finds it difficult to trust and frequently appears to act impulsively and unprofessionally. As the story progresses her personal and professional backstory emerges, providing insights into her paranoia and an explanation for her behaviour. However, I found myself alternating between feeling sympathetic towards her and feeling almost as frustrated as her superiors by some of the decisions she made! I do wonder whether I might have felt more sympathy with her had I read show more the first book in the series because it did become clear that she had previously had to cope with a number of traumatic experiences.
Although this was an easy to read story, there were times when I thought the characters were rather stereotypical. I also felt that the plot development was too full of clichés and required too much suspension of disbelief. This was compounded for me by the fact that, at quite an early stage I had guessed who the perpetrator was and found it increasingly difficult to believe that the team didn’t have the slightest suspicion! There was tension in the story-telling, but I found that this was frequently undermined by switches to what was going on in Josie’s personal life. There were occasional moments when I did wonder whether to continue reading but two factors influenced my decision to carry on to the end: a) it was a sufficiently engaging, undemanding read and b) I wanted to find out whether my early identification of the “baddie” had in fact been right – it had!
One final observation, I do wish that publishers would be more careful about ensuring that the synopsis on the back of books is free from factual mistakes – there a two on the back of this one! show less