‘Jukes cried out in agony before toppling onto the ground like a skittle struck by a bowling ball.’

Murder. Kidnap. Mayhem. And that’s just the opening few pages. Tony Bassett is back with the sixth book in his DCI Roscoe and DS Roy series, although this time it’s not just the criminal gang causing mayhem: DI Parkes from the National Crime Agency’s Kidnap Unit swoops in to help the local officers, but soon ruffles feathers with his frequent disdain for Roscoe and Roy’s investigative strategies. Can the officers work together to rescue the boy before the kidnap becomes another murder?

What’s it about?

According to the blurb:

It never rains but it pours . . .

When a ruthless gang burgles the home of a Premier League football player, DCI Gavin Roscoe and DS Sunita Roy suddenly have a murder and a kidnap on their hands.

The footballer’s stepson, Marcel, is taken from the palatial property whilst it is being ransacked, and his bodyguard is shot, stone cold dead.

To help them with their task, DI Parkes from the National Crime Agency’s Kidnap Unit joins the investigation but he has very different ideas about how the operation should be run.

While rain lashes the surrounding countryside, tempers rise, as do the flood waters.

Can the police track down this dangerous gang, unmask its malevolent ringleader, and reunite the boy with his family before it’s too late?

What’s it like?

Bassett consistently writes convincing characters, embedded in well-plotted, fast paced stories. I particularly enjoyed the friction between DI Parkes and the ‘home team’ – although his insistence that DS Roy’s pizza related discovery was a waste of resources was very galling and I certainly wouldn’t have possessed the patience that Roy did!

As always, I enjoyed the way that small details became relevant later on, as the investigation progressed. Bassett deploys a variety of police characters to pursue the various leads, so that the reader is always kept abreast of key discoveries, but in a very genuine way: this is a real team effort, with PC’s dispatched to do the routine legwork, the DCI keeping track of the threads and the DS contributing some well thought out ideas (there are no abrupt Sherlockian deductions here, but a lot of solid policing).

Final thoughts

This is the sixth book in Bassett’s Heart of England police procedural series and, like the previous five, it works perfectly well as a standalone. There are touches designed to give the series cohesion, which I wasn’t particularly interested in (Roy has a date with an ex-suitor, who behaves childishly and Roscoe has a man to man chat with his son) but they didn’t distract from the main plot and do help to create rounded police officers; these are people with investigative jobs, not obsessives teetering on the edge of madness!

Endings are important and I enjoyed the way a lot of details came together at the end of the story. Again, the characterisation is a real strength and I look forward to spending more time in Roscoe and Roy’s company.

‘It Never Rains’,
Tony Bassett,
2024, The Book Folks, paperback
Many thank to the author, publisher and Rachel’s Random Resources for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review and a spot on the blog tour:

Want to know more? See my reviews of ‘Murder on Oxford Lane‘ or ”Out For Revenge‘ or follow the tour: