Accent Press send me books on a fairly regular basis and I am most grateful to them for so doing. Some I have liked, others not, but one I very much enjoyed last year was The Death Pictures by Simon Hall which I reviewed in this post on three crime novels which I had read last year here.
At the time I made a note that I must keep an eye out for this author as he has a cracking pace, good imagination, tight plots and two interesting protagonists, a TV reporter Dan Groves and his friend, Chief Inspector Adam Breen. He lives alone with his dog, Rutherford, has recently begun a relationship with Clare, a colleague of Adam Breen's which is shaping up nicely after the loss of an earlier girl friend through suicide, and the reader is drawn into his life and thoughts, and gets to know and care what happens to him. Nicely done. Very filmic and I cannot help but feel this would make a good TV series. Let us hope somebody else thinks so as well though noting that Simon Hall, the author, is the BBC's Crime Corespondent in the south west of England, one hopes that he has good connections and might suggest this to somebody, we shall 
see.
Dan starts to receive mysterious letters from a masked man who keeps breaking into women's houses to steal only documents bearing their names. In each case, Dan finds a letter addressed to him. Somebody is threatening a crime, and taunting him with clues referring to his solving of the riddle in the Death Pictures and challenging him to come up with an answer to this mystery. Both Dan and Adam have no idea what the crime is going to be or when it is going to happen but they know it is soon and they need to track the mystery man down as fast as possible.
Then a child disappears......
Impossible to s say more without giving away the story or dropping clues to the denouement, but just to mention that there is another strand running alongside the main theme; this time an investigation by a seemingly over zealous inspector into two shootings by the same policeman who is suspected of being a rogue cop. And is he? Good twist and unexpected ending to this part of the book. I really enjoyed Evil Valley and was delighted when I cracked open the padded envelope and it fell into my hands. I sat down and read it straight through one afternoon and when I find myself caught up in a book and not wanting to put it down until finding out if the villain is going to be caught or not, then I know I have found a winner.
Simon Hall's book is such a one and I very much look forward to his next.
Thanks Accent Press for sending this to me and please keep me in mind when Simon writes his third...
