Killing State by Judith O’Reilly #bookreview #providedforreview #LoveBooksGroupTours

Book Blurb

WHAT IF THE PERSON YOU’RE ORDERED TO KILL IS THE WOMAN YOU WANT TO PROTECT?

Michael North, assassin and spy-for-hire, is very good at killing bad guys. But what happens when his shadowy bosses at the dark heart of the post-Brexit British government, order him to kill an innocent woman and North can’t bring himself to do it?

The woman is a rising political star, Honor Jones, MP.  She has started asking dangerous questions about the powerful men running her country. The trouble is, Honor doesn’t know when to stop. And, now that he’s met her, neither does North…

——

Killing state by Judith O’Reilly was good. It was very easy to read. And I enjoyed it. A lot.

Fancy something with mostly short, snappy chapters?

A fast-paced thriller?

Hit-men?

A woman in need of help, but not helpless?

A tome of a book? Who else loves a substantial read? I do and at nearly 500 pages it’s a sink your teeth into sort of book.

The Killing state by Judith O’Reilly was a great read. It’s the type of book you should pick up if you are in the mood for a blockbuster. I could totally see the story lending itself well to a film script or better yet a Netflix original series.

Never a dull moment.

Apart from a slightly shaky start – I will admit to heavily rolling my eyes at the hitman with a heart of gold trope, but I quickly got sucked into the story and the mystery. I enjoyed the plot, although it did feel a bit too loose at times.

The Killing state by Judith O’Reilly is the type of book you can easily dip in and out of. It would make for a great holiday read. In fact, I would have loved to have read it while lying in the sun sipping something far sweeter and more alcoholic than my usual cup of coffee.

It’s the type of story where I only want to write single words – buzz-words…

Political. Intelligent. Gritty. Action-packed.

Because I don’t want to give away any possible spoilers and the plot mostly moves along at such a fast pace that the blurb tells you nothing substantial. It was a good blurb thou. A lot happens to North and Honor.

Was the book perfect? No. The writing was a bit verbose – but that’s something I often enjoy – I’m wordy myself! But at points, it was bordering on too much even for me. I imagine that the style of writing won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. But then you can’t possibly please everyone. Nor should you try.  

I also took a while before I got to grips with the slightly futuristic setting of the world – the story is set in a post-Brexit Britain. A bleaker future than I hope we have from the end of March onwards. It did add an extra element of interest to the novel.

But none of those small criticisms challenged my enjoyment of the story.

North wasn’t my favourite character but then I don’t think he was meant to be. I liked Honor thou, she wasn’t a complete damsel in distress and had a bit of backbone and gumption – and who doesn’t like a bit of gumption in the main lead?

And the ending.

That ending. Well, wow – it was… SPOILER!

Have you read it?

I’m looking forward to the sequel which will be released later this year. I will be reading more by Judith O’Reilly in the future.

AUTHOR

Judith O’Reilly is the author of Wife in the North, a top-three Sunday Times bestseller and BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Judith is a former political producer with BBC 2’s Newsnight and ITN’s Channel 4 News, and, when she isn’t writing novels, she writes for The Sunday Times.  Judith lives in Durham.

If you are interested you can find the book for purchase HERE.

And finally, thank you very much to Love Books Group Tours for allowing me to take part in the blog tour.

I received a copy of the book for the blog tour, but the review is my own opinion.