The Murder House by Michael Wood (Matilda Darke 5)

Synopsis:

They were the perfect family. It was the perfect crime.

The new gripping DCI Matilda Darke crime thriller about the dark secrets that lie within a perfect family. For fans of Patricia Gibney and Angela Marsons.

It’s the most disturbing crime scene DCI Matilda Darke has ever seen…

The morning after a wedding reception at a beautiful suburban home in Sheffield, the bride’s entire family are stabbed to death – in a frenzied attack more violent than anything DCI Matilda Darke could have imagined.

Forensics point to a burglar on the run across the country. But cracks are starting to appear in Matilda’s team, someone is playing games with the evidence – and the killer might be closer to home than they thought…

My Rating: 4/5

My Review: Matilda and the team are back for an extremely disturbing case. The morning after a wedding reception a family are massacred sparing only a young girl. When Matilda arrives at the scene she knows how bad it is before even stepping foot inside the house. Everyone on the team herself, Sian, Rory, Scott and anybody else unfortunate to work this one isn’t going to forget it in a hurry. Even reading the scenes was horrific and frankly I had a feeling this storyline would be cleverly crafted and I was correct.

The Mercer family are mostly dead aside from Leah who was on her honeymoon. It seems from initial forensics that this should be a straightforward case however like anything it’s not always as it seems. Alongside this awful murder case we also see more of Sally Meaghan the mother of Carl Meaghan who went missing a few years before. The Carl Meaghan case is the one that haunts Matilda the most and seeing as she cannot run the murder case and still help and support Sally she asks retired DI Pat Campbell to help.

This story although gruesome was extremely fast paced and engaging with a lot of question marks hanging over many lines of enquiry. I also loved the fact that we are getting to know more about Scott in this particular book and once again we also see our favourite recurring characters such as Adele, Matilda’s best friend and the local pathologist. This book was another fabulous installment in this series that I love! I cannot wait for the next one!