Excellent Memory. This is the first book in a new police mystery series, centered on a Eurocrimes Division with authority and agents spread throughout Europe, including a United Kingdom in the midst of the Brexit split. It is intensely dark - we open with a politician being tortured and murdered, and it really doesn't get any brighter from there. But also very good - I'm no fan of cops (being American and seeing what they get away with here), but Ash and Varg are shown to be good people approaching the case from different perspectives with the same end goal: solve the crime, period. Truly one of the best mysteries I've read in quite a while, and the dark and grit is one of the reasons for this. Yes, the reader gets a sense early on of what the scope of the mystery likely is, but the way Savile pulls it all together and throws in just enough reveals along the way, with nearly earth shattering (and so very tragic if based on anything remotely similar in real life) reveals in the last 10%, certainly for our heroes. There is enough backstory to both Ash and Varg that could merit a few prequel books, and there is enough potential here that by the end of the book, when the two *finally* meet, this reader was genuinely hoping for a Book 2. ( )

This is a gritty thriller about a series of revenge killings in present day Europe. It is a debut for a potential police procedural series featuring detectives from a multinational task force called the Eurocrimes Division of the European Union.

I found the two detectives in this book to be the best thing about it. Peter Ash from England and Francesca ("Frankie") Varg from Sweden form a good team, even though they only meet face-to-face at the end of the story. They narrate the story in alternating chapters to progress the investigation. I think there's a future for them if there's a sequel to this book.

The opening chapter is an attention-getter. A prominent gay Swedish politician is kidnapped and killed. His tongue is cut out and sent to a French monsignor in Paris, who disappears shortly after receiving it. Ernesto Donatti, a shadowy Vatican official, is called in by the monsignor's assistant to deal with his disappearance, and he in turn calls in Ash. (He knows and trusts him from previous encounters.) They soon find a connection between the Swedish murder and the French monsignor's kidnapping , which brings Ms. Varg into the investigation. What follows is a cat-and-mouse chase for the killer and it's revealed that Peter is one of his targets. A conclusion comes after a tense and violent confrontation between Ash and the killer.​

The story is cringe-worthy reading at times. Early on it seems obvious what is driving the killer, but for much of the story, Ash struggles to find a motive. He actually makes a couple of rather stupid mistakes which essentially allows the killer to successfully strike again. There's a backstory to Ash which might explain these lapses, but his character is not developed to make a connection. Similarly, the treatment of Donatti's role in the story is a missed opportunity for more depth. As to the killer, there's no presentation of his personality or character. At the conclusion there's an information dump about him and his scheme, but for most of the story he's a sinister mystery man. This book rates as an OK read that could be better.

I received my review copy of the eBook from Severn House via Netgalley. The views expressed are my own. ( )