Suze Reviews...: Six Wounds by Morgan Cry

I'm returning to crime with today's review, opening the blog tour for Six Wounds by Morgan Cry, the second Danielle Coulstoun novel. Set in the Spanish sunshine, it's entertaining from beginning to end. Huge thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inviting me and to the publisher for my review copy.

The Blurb

To make the perfect Spanish whodunnit cocktail, take one dead gangster, mix in six shifty expats, add one ruthless baddie and garnish with a suspicious police officer . . .

Daniella Coulstoun has recently moved to the Costa Blanca. When the dead body of a prominent London gangster is discovered in the cellar of her bar she quickly becomes the number one suspect.

With the police closing in, the local expats turning on her and a psychotic rival to the dead gangster in the background, Daniella knows she needs to nail the real killer, and fast.

Six Wounds is out today from Polygon.

My Review

We first met Daniella in 2020's Thirty-One Bones when she inherited Se Busca, a run down bar on the Costa Blanca, from her estranged mother. The bar came with its own patrons, a ragtag bunch of expats with some colourful histories. Things have been ticking over for a wee while but get a while lot worse when a body turns up in the pub cellar. On top of that, with Daniella not up to speed with her Spanish, business accounts, local feuds and, generally, just how things work, she feels the expats, including her lover, are trying to edge her out. And there are others who are trying harder and with far less subtlety. She's in for a rough ride...

Six Wounds opens with a crash, bang, wallop and doesn't really let up until the end. For those new to this particular slice of Spanish heaven the scene setting is wonderful. The sunshine, fiestas, holidaymakers... And the gaudy, tacky seediness of Se Busca (and one of two other places), Daniella's mother's fusty apartment - it's so easy to visualise all of it. And the characters, well... The expats are a colourful bunch - an ex pop star, a racing driver, models, an ex accountant and a businessman whose lives in El Descaro have been equally colourful. The jury is still out for me on some of them but I'm not George's biggest fan and I generally like Zia, most of the time anyway! A big shoutout for Saucy's sober moment! There are some fresh characters too, most notably Carl Stoker, not a man I'd like to offend in any way. Daniella is a brilliant character - whilst she doesn't hold the sway her mother did, she doesn't stand for any nonsense and will fight to hold her own. She's fiery, though, and that does get her into some bother.

Morgan Cry has given us some great local rivalries and customs - I loved the idea of The Steal, although I sympathised with poor Danielle about it. And there is the parade and the planned race - I loved all the wee details adding to our picture of Daniella's new life.

Six Wounds is a sun-soaked, action-packed thriller which grabs you at the get go and pulls you along for the ride. The storyline is spot on, the pacing is perfect, the rising tension occasionally lightened by sunshine and humour. Throw in a smart, sassy protagonist and a colourful supporting cast and you have a fabulous romp of a book. I said the same about the last one but this one too is far more fun than it has any right to be! Highly recommended.

The Author

Here, Gordon Brown is writing as Morgan Cry. Gordon has written six crime thrillers to date, along with a number of short stories. He also helped found Bloody Scotland, Scotland's International Crime Writing Festival, is a DJ on local radio (www.pulseonair.co.uk) and runs a strategic planning consultancy. In a former life Gordon delivered pizzas in Toronto, sold non-alcoholic beer in the Middle East, launched a creativity training business, floated a high tech company on the London Stock Exchange, and compered the main stage at a two-day music festival. He lives in Scotland and is married with two children.