Savage Gods (A John Savage Thriller) by Peter Boland

Wishing Peter a very Happy Publication Day as Savage Gods comes out today! I'm so thrilled to be opening the tour today - along with (e)Book Nerd Reviews and Alex J Book Reviews - as I have absolutely loved this series from the get go! Big thanks to Sarah Hardy at Book on the Bright Side for inviting me and to Peter for my review copy.

The Blurb:

He only kills atheists.

Pray that God's on your side.

A serial killer stalks the streets of London, murdering atheists in the most horrific ways. So far, it's only the loud, outspoken ones who've been targeted. Specifically, a controversial group of intellectuals called The Four Pillars of Atheism. Attacking religion and angering believers, they've amassed enough hate mail and death threats to keep the police busy until hell freezes over.

DCI Roberts and her team have too many suspects and are drowning in leads. The pressure is on her to catch the killer before another horrific murder is committed. Not helped by the fact that London is in the grip of a sweltering heat wave. Desperate times call for desperate measures. DCI Roberts reaches out to John Savage and Tannaz to help her find the killer. Trouble is, Savage has his own personal demon to battle. Can he defeat one and catch the other?

Savage Gods is published today by Adrenalin Books and is available from Amazon. 

My Review:

John Savage is back! This is the fourth book in one of my favourite series. Don't worry if you haven't read the others as this works well as a standalone. But I would encourage you to, because they're great. You can read my reviews of Savage Lies, Savage Games and Savage Children by clicking through from the titles. You can also read a guest post Peter wrote a while back (when I first reviewed Savage Games) about the inspiration for John Savage here.

Savage and his sidekick (she would hate to be described as that, I think!) Tannaz are called in by DCI Roberts, whom they met on a previous case, to help to catch the person dubbed The Atheist Killer. She knows that Savage and Tannaz will look at things differently from her team, and they prove their worth very quickly. But their involvement is not welcomed by everyone....

For those of you new to the series, Savage is a retired soldier, who still keeps himself physically fit and healthy, but has reached that point in his life where he likes to take things a bit easier - elasticated trousers, reading in the garden, drinking tea. He also suffers from PTSD, from his time as a soldier, and things are getting worse of late. But he jumps at the chance to help the police.

I love Savage. Yes, he's older and that's quite unusual in a protagonist in a book of this type. He often has to get physical, and fortunately hasn't lost any of the skills he acquired as a soldier. He has a strong moral compass, and is angered by any kind of wrongdoing. He also has a love of movies. And tea. He's believable and relatable. And his mental health issues are believable too, but Peter has addressed this issue in a really original way.

Tannaz is brilliant. She is young, spiky, sassy, brave, not afraid to speak out, and an absolute whizz on a computer. Her friendship with Savage is one of the strong points of this book and, indeed, the series. They are so, so different, but have developed a deep friendship, shared their skills with each other and work well together. Basically they love each other to bits. It's a joy.

One thing I love about Peter's books is that they are original, and this one is no different. He has taken an interesting theme to run with, and it works very successfully. The plot is detailed, and clearly well researched, with a few red herrings and dead ends thrown in. This is one of those books though that I can't really say too much about for fear of spoiling it for you, dear reader.

Full of action from the beginning, tension builds throughout. There are a few moments that might make you wince, one or two in particular - best not to read this when you're eating! It's great to see some returning characters - if you haven't met Dink before, you're going to love him - but there is also a raft of new ones here. All of them, old and new, good and bad, are well drawn. From the new characters Ralph Sutherland is a standout for me, as I found him interesting.

Savage Gods is an original, interesting, fast paced and tense thriller, populated by brilliantly drawn characters. The denouement is scary and exciting. And shocking. I actually cried out. This is another strong entry to the John Savage collection, of which Peter should be very proud. And I REALLY hope we'll see another one soon!

The Author:

After studying to be an architect, Pete realised he wasn't very good at it. He liked designing buildings he just couldn't make them stand up, which is a bit of a handicap in an industry that likes to keep things upright. So he switched to advertising, writing ads for everything from cruise lines to zombie video games. 

After becoming disillusioned with working in ad agencies, he swtiched to writing thriller novels (or was it because he just wanted to work at home in his pyjamas). He soon realised there's no magic formula. You just have to put one word in front of another (and keep doing that for a year). It also helps if you can resist the lure of surfing, playing Nintendo Switch with your son, watching America's Next Top Model with your daughter and drinking beer in a garden chair.