#BlogTour Out for Blood by Deborah Masson

Today it's a pleasure to take part in the BlogTour Out for Blood by Deborah Masson.

About the Author

Deborah Masson was born and bred in Aberdeen, Scotland. Always restless and fighting against being a responsible adult, she worked in several jobs including secretarial, marketing, reporting for the city's freebie newspaper and a stint as a postie - to name but a few.

Through it all, she always read crime fiction and, when motherhood finally settled her into being an adult (maybe even a responsible one) she turned her hand to writing what she loved. Deborah started with short stories and flash fiction whilst her daughter napped and, when she later welcomed her son into the world, she decided to challenge her writing further through online courses with Professional Writing Academy and Faber Academy.

Her debut novel, Hold Your Tongue, is the result of those courses. Hold Your Tongue has been widely well reviewed by readers and authors alike, with many comparing her favourably to Stuart MacBride. It won the Bloody Scotland Scottish Crime Debut of the Year 2020 and was longlisted for CWA New Blood Dagger 2020.

Follow @deborah_masson on Twitter, on Goodreads, on Amazon, Buy Out for Blood

About the book

A young man, the son of an influential businessman, is discovered dead in his central Aberdeen apartment. Hours later, a teenaged girl with no identification is found hanged in a suspected suicide.

As DI Eve Hunter and her team investigate the two cases, they find themselves in a tug-of-war between privilege and poverty; between the elite and those on the fringes of society. Then an unexpected breakthrough leads them to the shocking conclusion: that those in power have been at the top for too long - and now, someone is going to desperate lengths to bring them down... Can they stop someone who is dead set on revenge, no matter the cost?

Review

This is the second book in the DI Eve Hunter series. If you have read the first then you'll know that Eve is an abrasive often quite angry person. She clashes with colleagues who find her attitude, techniques and general demeanour hard to handle. Does she feel as if she has to act like a man in a career dominated by men?

This time the author gives the reader an insight into the world behind the police officer. The people who have to spend each day confronting death and violence, it's easy to forget they have personal lives that can be strewn with problems too.

I think Masson throws up an interesting conundrum about the way victims are perceived, in this case it is very much with the focus on the deaths of two young people. The death of a privileged young man and a young girl who comes from lesser circumstances. Straight away you have presumptions, expectations and a lot of stereotyping going on.

Then as the story progresses the narrative changes in regards to perception. Does wealthy and well-educated mean he was the better person? Does her lack of chance and choice in life automatically make her a person deserving of a bad fate? I actually really enjoyed the way Masson approached this aspect of the story, because it shows a fatal flaw in the thought process when it comes to society in general, and also often in policing.

The human trafficking element of the story melds into the above, because the victims tend to be considered vulnerable and are often forgotten people in society. The ones nobody misses. Masson gives readers an intriguing crime read with a lot of food for thought.

Buy Out for Blood at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. 10th December 2020 | £7.99 | Paperback Original | Corgi Ebook available 19th November 2020. At Hive. At Bookshop.org.