This is the third book in the DCI Priest series, and although I am keen to check out the previous two books now and catch up on the backstory that I had missed, I don’t feel it is necessary to understand and enjoy this book. It works very well as a standalone book, which is a tribute to the author’s development of the characters within this book, which leaves you feeling as though you know them well.
This was a well-paced story, filled with action from start to finish, and one that I found myself reading in the space of an afternoon because I needed to find out what was going to happen next. Again, I feel that this was largely due to the characters, DCI Priest and his team in particular carried the story, both as individuals and as a team, and I very much enjoyed their relationships and how that shaped the investigation.
The plot was interesting and clearly thought out, and you could certainly pick up on the effort and research that had been put into crafting the world and narrative of rival gangs, and the shifting power structure between and within the gangs. This was a glimpse into a different world, and focusing on the activity of the rival gang, and the intricacy of their work set this book apart, because it is a peephole into a world that we usually see just being investigated in crime novels, whereas this time we saw it being lived and the challenges it posed.
In keeping with the world being portrayed, this book does contain a lot of violence, which at points did feel a little too overdone in terms of detail and I feel that it could have been toned down without losing the impact this had. This is certainly not a book for the faint-hearted.

*I received an e-arc in exchange for an honest review*