Tag: Reviews

#BlogTour #BookReview The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan @RandomTTours @fictionpubteam

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The Murder Rule BT PosterWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to HarperCollins for my digital review copy. Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Elizabeth at libcreads.

The Murder RuleAbout the Book

No one is innocent in this story.

First Rule: Make them like you.
Second Rule: Make them need you.
Third Rule: Make them pay.

They think I’m a young, idealistic law student, that I’m passionate about reforming a corrupt and brutal system. They think I’m working hard to impress them. They think I’m here to save an innocent man on death row.

They’re wrong. I’m going to bury him.

Format: Hardback (304 pages)     Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication date: 12th May 2022 Genre: Crime, Thriller

Find The Murder Rule on Goodreads

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My Review

We know from quite early on in The Murder Rule that Hannah has a very personal reason for inveigling her way on to the Innocence Project team. Far from wanting to prove the innocence of one of the individuals the Innocence Project is representing, she’s convinced of the person’s guilt and is determined to ensure they remain in prison. As we discover, she’s willing to do anything to achieve her objective even if that means deceiving others or sabotaging the Project’s activities.  Her determination to achieve what she’s set out to do borders on obsession, even if seemingly born out of love.

Hannah’s not a particularly likeable character to begin with but I had to admire her tenacity, her ingenuity and her chutzpah.  She’s not going to let anyone stand in her way and if that means some shady tactics, that’s fine with her.  After all, the end justifies the means doesn’t it? The more we get to know her, though, the more we sense there’s someone quite vulnerable behind that tough outer shell. And what if everything you thought you knew, everything you had been told, was wrong and the truth was quite different?  Can a desire for revenge be transformed into a desire for justice, and just what will that entail? After all, if the truth has been buried for over a decade, there are sure to be those with an interest in ensuring it never sees the light of day.

At times you’ll probably find yourself cheering on Hannah and at other times find yourself thinking, I really wouldn’t do that if I was you, or, look out here comes trouble. If you like the idea of a courtroom scene that could have come straight out of a TV drama, and you’re willing to suspend disbelief just a little, then you will love the scenes towards the end of the book.

The Murder Rule is a twisty legal thriller with some moments of high drama that gathers momentum, reaching warp speed in the final chapters. Will justice prevail? You’ll have to read it to find out.

In three words: Taut, suspenseful, dramatic

Try something similar: An Engineered Injustice by William L. Myers, Jr.

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Dervla Author picAbout the Author

Internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed writer Dervla McTiernan burst onto the writing scene with The Ruin, her crime debut set in Ireland. The Ruin is the first in the detective Cormac Reilly series and has been published in the United States, the UK and Ireland and in New Zealand and Australia, where it was a top ten bestseller.

Dervla spent twelve years working as a lawyer. Following the global financial crisis, she moved to Australia and turned her hand to writing. An avid fan of crime and detective novels from childhood, Dervla wrote a short story, The Roommate, which was shortlisted for the Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Competition. She went on to write The Ruin, and a string of other bestsellers. Dervla is a member of the Sisters in Crime and Crime Writers Association, and lives in Perth, Australia, with her husband and two children.

Connect with Dervla
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Murder Rule Graphic 1

#WWWWednesday – 18th May 2022

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

Only May CoverOnly May by Carol Lovekin (eARC, Honno)

I give you fair warning, if you’re planning on lying to me, don’t look me in the eye.

It’s May’s 17th birthday – making the air tingle with a tension she doesn’t fully understand. But she knows her mother and her aunt are being evasive; secrets are being kept.

Like her grandmother before her, May has her own magic: the bees whisper to her as they hover in the garden … the ghosts chatter in the graveyard. And she can’t be fooled by a lie.

She becomes determind to find out what is being kept from her. But when May starts to uncover her own story, she threatens to bring her mother and aunt’s carefully constructed family to the edge of destruction….

Recently finished

Outcast by Chris Ryan (Zaffre)

The Witch’s Tree by Elena Collins (Boldwood Books) 

Vincent van Gogh: The Healing Power of Nature (September Publishing)

The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan (HarperCollins)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The White Girl CoverThe White Girl by Tony Birch (eARC, HarperCollins)

Odette Brown has lived her entire life on the fringes of Deane, a small Australian country town. Dark secrets simmer beneath the surface of Deane – secrets that could explain why Odette’s daughter, Lila, left her one-year-old daughter, Sissy, and never came back, or why Sissy has white skin when her family is Aboriginal.

For thirteen years, Odette has quietly raised her granddaughter without drawing notice from welfare authorities who remove fair-skinned Aboriginal children from their families. But the arrival of a new policeman with cruel eyes and a rigid by-the-book attitude throws the Brown women’s lives off-kilter. It will take all of Odette’s courage and cunning to save Sissy from the authorities, and maybe even lead her to find her daughter.

Bolstered by love, smarts, and the strength of their ancestors, Odette and Sissy are an indomitable force, handling threats to their family and their own identities with grace and ingenuity, while never losing hope for themselves and their future.