Persons Unknown (DS Manon: Book 2) by Susie Steiner

Title:  Persons Unknown

Author: Susie Steiner

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group – Random House

Date of publication: July 4th, 2017

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Number of pages: 400

POV: Alternating 1st and 3rd person

Series: DS Manon

Missing, Presumed – Book 1

Persons Unknown – Book 2

Where you can find Persons Unknown: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Book synopsis (from Goodreads):

Manon has settled back into life in Cambridgeshire with her adopted son Fly. She’s perfectly happy working on cold cases until a man is stabbed to death just yards from the police station, and both the victim and the prime suspect turn out to be much closer to home than she would like. How well does Manon know her loved ones, and are they capable of murder

Trigger Warning: None

My review:

I am going to be honest here. Very honest. I have stayed away from reading/reviewing British police mysteries. I didn’t understand how the British police worked. I decided to bite the bullet with Persons Unknown. Instead of getting my toes wet, I jumped in feet first. While I did get a little confused over the backstory with Manon and Fly, I enjoyed reading this book.

I will warn everyone that this is a 2nd book the DS Manon series. You need to read Missing, Presumed to understand the backstory of Persons Unknown. I didn’t and I felt that I was missing out on a major part of the back story. It was discussed in the book but it wasn’t the same as reading about it in the first book.

The whodunit with John-Oliver was intense. I didn’t believe for a minute that Fly killed him. They were building their case on circumstantial evidence. When it was revealed who killed him and who was involved in it, I was pretty surprised. I did figure out one part of it (when Angel told her story to Birdie). The other part, well that surprised me. I was not expecting the mastermind to be who it was. I  felt bad that Fly was caught in the middle of that whole mess.

I was on the fence on how to feel about Manon. I loved that she loved Fly and that she was willing to risk her job to prove his innocence. But at the same time, she seemed like she was never happy. I am wondering if it was because her character was pregnant. We all know how women get when they are in the last trimester of pregnancy. I know I wasn’t a joy to deal with. I also think that her decision to have a child was an impulse.

The end of the book was good. My only complaint is there was so much going on that there was information overload.

My Summary of Persons Unknown: 3 Stars

Person Unknown is a good British police mystery that does keep you on your feet while reading it. The only reason why I didn’t give it a 4-star rating is that I felt that there was information overload in the ending. Other than that, this is a book that I enjoyed reading and I hope that another book is written in the DS Manon series.

Will I reread: Yes

Will I recommend to family and friends: Yes

Age range: Adult

Why: Sexual situations, violence, and language

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**