Book review : A Cold Flame - Aidan Conway

A Cold Flame by Aidan Conway is one of the books that I recently picked up in the 3-for-£5 deal at The Works. While it's not at all clear from the front cover or even the blurb on the back of the book, this is the second book in the series and I think this is what frequently left me feeling as if I wasn't sure what was really going on. While some of the things I felt that I was missing out on were largely unimportant - such as one of the police officers' complicated, if not completely failing, relationship - other things left me feeling slightly miffed that I wasn't fully up to speed, including a surprise appearance at the end of the book of a particularly nasty character who, as far as I could tell, featured in the first book. This isn't something that usually bothers me - I read a vast amount of crime fiction and many of the books feature in series that I haven't read - but this is one of the few times that I felt ill at ease, lacking vital knowledge from previous events.

The novel is set in Rome and, although I did get a general feel for the city and its inhabitants, I was also completely lost in the various street names and districts that are mentioned. The book begins with a nasty crime - a flat that is set on fire with the door sealed up from the outside. The illegal immigrants on the inside have no chance to escape. It felt wrong to me that such a vicious crime goes completely unpunished and is barely investigated. Next, a priest is killed and mutilated - another crime that doesn't seem to really go anywhere. With the police department already at breaking point, a series of terrorist attacks are being planned, to throw the city, in the midst of a gay pride event, into absolute bedlam.

The main detectives in the novel, DIs Rossi and Carrara, are thrown in at the deep end, trying to link all of these different events together. They have a mysterious journalist-in-exile helping them out - presumably another character putting in an appearance from the previous novel? - but they seem to be putting their fingers in way too many pies, running around the city pretty randomly trying to figure out what is going on.

The city is packed with tourists and locals and the summer heat is pretty oppressive. Maybe this is why every time I'd read a few chapters, I felt the need to get out and find some fresh air (figuratively speaking !). The final chapters, where I could see where everything was heading, had me racing through them, but for most of the first two thirds of the story, I felt at a loss, with no idea of where the book was heading.

Even now that I have finished the novel, I don't feel like all of the questions were answered. I ended up with a sense of everything being thrown into the mix - terrorists, racists, anti-LGBT+, illegal immigrants, paedophile priests and goodness knows what else for good measure - and many of the themes seemed to be left up in the air, once the story was all tied up.

Maybe I would have had a much clearer picture and more positive impression if I'd read the previous book though, so I'd definitely suggest starting off with that one.

star rating : 3.5/5

RRP : £12.99

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: One More Chapter; Digital original edition (6 Sept. 2018)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 000828119X
• ISBN-13: 978-0008281199
• Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 2.5 x 19.8 cm