My grateful thanks to the author, David Videcette, for a copy of The Detriment in return for an honest review.

I was thrilled when David asked me if I would like to read The Detriment as he kindly provided a guest post for me all about reality in Crime Fiction that you can read here, when I first began blogging in 2015.

The Detriment is the second book by David to feature Jake Flannagan after The Theseus Paradox and is available for purchase here.

The Detriment

“The truth costs nothing, but a lie can cost you everything…”

June 2007: a barbaric nail bomb is planted outside a London nightclub, a spy is found dead in his garden, and a blazing Jeep is driven into Glasgow airport. Three events bound by an earth-shattering connection that should have remained buried forever.

From the author of The Theseus Paradox, the smash-hit 7/7 thriller based on true events, comes the sequel about a real-life mystery that threatens to destroy a nation. Detective Inspector Jake Flannagan must uncover how a series of astonishing events are inextricably linked, before the past closes in on him.

We all have secrets we say we’ll never tell…

My Review of The Detriment

Jake Flannagan is back at work, but he’s still not entirely ready to play by the rules.

I really enjoyed The Detriment, finding it intelligently written, intriguing and interesting.  There is no need to have read the first book in the series, Theseus Paradox (although I would recommend it) because The Detriment works really well as a stand alone and I was hooked from the very first page. The book starts at a cracking pace and doesn’t let up from the first page to the last.

David Videcette has quite an urbane style of writing. I really liked the sense of immediacy from the date, time and place information at the start of each chapter and the way in which some information is slightly withheld so that the reader experiences the discoveries in the same way as the characters. I kept thinking I’d just read one more chapter to see what happened next and before I knew it, a whole day had disappeared. I really couldn’t put down The Detriment. The level of detail was pitch perfect; enough to give a real sense of atmosphere so that the story came alive without extraneous padding, creating a heart-thumpingly good read.

The book is a truly disturbing insight into the murky underworld of the police and the powers that be so that I was left wondering just which side of the law is the right side at times. As The Detriment is brilliantly based around real events it is impossible to know what is fact and what is fiction and I found this aspect very intriguing and thought-provoking. I was completely absorbed in the events.

There’s a cracking pace to the plot so that I can really visualise The Detriment as a film or television series. In fact, it felt more like I was watching events than reading about them, so realistic was the writing.

I found the factual and source detail at the end of the book particularly fascinating and not a little disturbing. Reading The Detriment has left me feeling naive, previously duped and newly informed as well as hugely entertained. The Detriment is a brilliant book and I can’t wait for the next book in the series.

About David Videcette

David Videcette is a former Scotland Yard investigator who specialises in terrorism and organised crime. As a Metropolitan Police Detective he worked on a wealth of infamous cases and was a lead investigator in the London 7/7 bombings in 2005. He supports the work of the Police Dependants’ Trust through his writing.

You can find out more about David on his website, by following him on Twitter and on Facebook.