Book review : Sacrifice - Hanna Winter

As I am a big fan of the 3-for-£5 section at The Works, I frequently read crime fiction books that appear in the middle of a series and have the constant niggling feeling that I have missed out on previous adventures and important personal information that would have given greater depth to the current story. This time, though, it actually worked out, as Sacrifice by Hanna Winter is the first book in a series featuring Lena Peters. The second title, Seelenriss, is only available in German though, which is the original language. There don't appear to be any other books in the series so far.

Lena Peters is a criminal psychologist, just starting out in a new job with the Berlin murder squad, but things don't get off to a good start. Her teammates don't pass essential information on to her, so she is made to look stupid, presenting a report to her team on how to go ahead interviewing the latest victim in a series of murders when, in fact, she is the only person who doesn't know that she has died. Her boss doesn't seem to like her much either and she is soon given the sack. That's not the end of her input though. Following up on a lead, she comes across Wulf Belling, an ex-cop, who teams up with her in her hunt for the killer.

Lena ends up as a target herself, but was she really the intended victim ? Various secondary characters and twists in the story are left undeveloped, presumably to be picked up again in future books. It's a chilling tale and I think the rest of the series shows great promise. Definitely one that I'd be interested in following up.

star rating : 4/5

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Manilla (17 Nov. 2016)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 178658008X
• ISBN-13: 978-1786580085