Perfect Kill By Helen Fields

‘Perfect Kill’ is the sixth book in DI Callanch book series by Helen Fields.

Alone, trapped in the darkness and with no way out, Bart Campbell knows that his chances of being found alive are slim. Drugged and kidnapped, the realisation soon dawns that he’s been locked inside a shipping container far from his Edinburgh home. But what Bart doesn’t yet know is that he’s now heading for France where his unspeakable fate is already sealed… DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach are working on separate cases that soon collide as it becomes clear that the men and women being shipped to France are being traded for women trafficked into Scotland. With so many lives at stake, they face an impossible task – but there’s no option of failure when Bart and so many others will soon be dead…

I have read all of Helen’s books including her courtroom suspense drama and I’ve enjoyed them all, their tense, gruesome and really concentrate on the darker more twisted side of the human nature and her latest book is no different. But for me in all honesty, I found this book to be most unsettling story that I’ve read in a while, so much so that I regularly had to put it down.

The story focuses on the harsh reality of human trafficking as well as human organ harvesting and is seen through the narrative of Bart who finds himself kidnapped and in a strange country, whilst Elenuta has come to Scotland looking for a better life and is captured by a Scottish criminal who sell women for prostitution as well as competing in cruel games where women are pitted against each other to race to safety. As it’s a DI Callanch series, Luc is working in France for Interpol and Ava is working in Scotland, but even though they are in different countries, the sexual chemistry continues to sizzle between the pair of them as they struggle with new feelings for each other.

From the very first scene, this book is an intense and cruel story. The treatment of people particularly women is disturbing, from the sexual, physical to the psychological torment that the women are exposed to for gratification and for money, is truly haunting and to think that the circumstance are realistic to real life, makes the story even more terrible. The story is graphically written and Helen doesn’t hold back with the descriptions of the treatment that all parties are exposed to, including the police.

Although the book is part of a series, it could be read as a standalone, but I would recommend reading all the books in the series, as DI Callanch and DI Ava Turner are interesting duo, as the handsome and charismatic french man and outspoken Scottish woman.

With a strong plot that is well researched and informative, ‘Perfect Crime’ is a complex and disturbing thriller, that made for gripping reading but is most certainly not for the faint hearted!

You can buy ‘Perfect Kill’ from Amazon and is available to buy from good bookshops.