Unbound Ties by Liz Mistry

Unbound Ties is the seventh book in the D.I. Gus McGuire series.

Lavender’s green dilly dilly,

Lavender’s blue

If you love me dilly dilly,

I will love you

D.I. Gus McGuire is called out to a murder scene. This is no ordinary crime as the victim was pregnant. Though her body was found hanging from a hook off the ceiling, preliminary observation reports this is no suicide. But this is just the beginning…

The story alternates between Bradford – where Gus and his team work, The Man in Black, and a secure psychiatric facility. Gus is disappointed with his parents for keeping secrets. First, his sister Katie was diagnosed with cancer – he was the last one to know. Then came another blow when Katie started seeing Gabriela, Gus’ ex-wife.

Fergus, Gus’ dad is a medical examiner. Corrine, Gus’ mum starts to receive envelopes containing horrific drawings of a woman hanging from the hook. Again, Gus is the last one to know of it. Gus also learns of his mum’s dark past – a childhood filled with racism and parental abuse.

The killer is hell bent on taking revenge. To put the police off-track, he resorts to killing in two separate ways. The police are baffled by the sudden surge in murders across town.

Unbound Ties by Liz Mistry is a mind-blowing, spine-chilling, riveting police procedural. Though seventh in the series, this is the first of Liz Mistry’s books I read and I cannot wait to catch up with the first six books. What a gripping and wow mystery!

Without giving out more details about the characters, I would say, the various angles Liz Mistry has explored in this book are simply superb. As the story began, I was wondering what has the murders got to do with the psychiatric facility? I doubted if one of the patients escaped the facility to commit the crime and silently came back in before anybody realized they have gone missing… Hmm, this is definitely not what happened in the story. Uh-huh, nope!

Gus is a pretty terrific character. His internal battles are very well-portrayed throughout the story. He’s also in for a surprise halfway through. I am eager to seeing how this ‘surprise’ plays out in the future books of this series. Also, the case is close to Gus – people he loves are targeted and the time is running out for Gus to nab the killer before it is too late.

Unbound Ties is a highly recommended read. If you like gritty police procedures and mysteries that keep you guessing till the end, Unbound Ties must be on your read-list.

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Many thanks to Rachel for the blog tour invite.

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