The Ringmaster
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3.9 • 7 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The heart-stoppingly tense next instalment in the richly atmospheric, page-turning and international bestselling Sam Shephard series Death is stalking the South Island of New Zealand Marginalised by previous antics, Sam Shephard, is on the bottom rung of detective training in Dunedin, and her boss makes sure she knows it. She gets involved in her first homicide investigation, when a university student is murdered in the Botanic Gardens, and Sam soon discovers this is not an isolated incident. There is a chilling prospect of a predator loose in Dunedin, and a very strong possibility that the deaths are linked to a visiting circus… Determined to find out who's running the show, and to prove herself, Sam throws herself into an investigation that can have only one ending…Rich with atmosphere, humour and a dark, shocking plot, The Ringmaster marks the return of passionate, headstrong police officer, Sam Shephard, in the next instalment of Vanda Symon's bestselling series.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
New Zealand author Symon's uninspired sequel to 2019's Overkill finds Sam Shephard, a trainee detective in Dunedin, on the team looking into the murder of Rose-Marie Bateman, a 23-year-old university student. Bateman, believed to be the victim of a serial killer, was found bound and gagged in the water in the Botanic Garden with her head bashed in. A prologue that depicts this killing unnecessarily and prematurely narrows the list of possible suspects. Meanwhile, Shephard's work on the case is sidetracked by her antagonistic boss, Det. Insp. Greg Johns, who orders her to deal with issues relating to a traveling circus. The Darling Brothers' Circus, which has been the subject of aggressive protests by animal rights activists, has also been reported to possess stolen property. That drudge work leads to a break in the homicide case when Shephard notes that the circus's previous stops coincided with four apparently unconnected unsolved murders, suggesting that someone from the circus is the murderer. Thin characters don't redeem a clich d story line.
