This book is outstanding. If I could give it more than 5 stars I would! Literally 24 hours before reading this book, I decided to get rid of my James Patterson books: I can no longer sit through the misogynistic portrayal of women. I didn't think I'd find any man who would write a respectful and diverse crime-thriller and definitely not so soon. Welcome to the stage: Robert Bryndza.

Shadow Sands is the second novel in the Kate Marshall series following Nine Elms. The rest of this post will have some minor spoilers so let me summarise by saying this book is packed full of plot-twists, characters that spring off the page and emotions. Bryndza is a masterful writer and I highly recommend his work.

One of my favourite aspects of Shadow Sands is the love interests. For protagonist Kate there is none - she has her own demons and focuses on herself and her son, rather than having a long line of love interests as some crime novels feature. And then there's Tristan - sweet Tristan. In Shadow Sands Tristan comes out as gay, as someone who came out later in life I appreciated the exploration of this. It was very realistic and made some fabulous observations on homophobic behaviour.

"Listen, Tris. Sarah's not homophobic. She loves them coloured cups they do for Pride at Costa."

Bryndza has cemented himself as my new favourite crime writer with this dark instalment. His characters have such depth to them and you aren't bombarded with information, rather you slowly learn more and more about them and can begin to predict their behaviour. Shadow Sands is absolutely fantastic and I can't recommend the series enough. I'll be grabbing myself a physical copy as soon as they're released to match my Nine Elms.

Shadow Sands is available from November 3rd. Thank you to Robert Bryndza, Thomas and Mercer and NetGalley for providing an ARC in return for an honest review.