“Fatal Hate” is the second in the DC Mel Cotton thrillers from author Brian Price and after thoroughly enjoying ‘Fatal Trade’, his debut novel, I was very keen to read this exciting sequel. - DC Mel Cotton is back with a new case to solve, the murder of Duncan Bennett, an unassuming worker at a local confectionary warehouse. While Mel’s team investigate, one key question remains... who would want ‘boring’ Duncan dead? The case soon becomes far more complex and dangerous than expected, threatening to overwhelm Mexton's small police force. With terrorists, a paedophile network and a hitman in town, Mel and her colleagues face their greatest challenge yet. — There’s a lot going on in this story - bomb making and attacks, racism, attempted murder, a high profile death, child abuse websites and lots more to keep the reader glued, (not) anticipating the next twist and turn. Mel is compared in the story as a cat with nine lives, using them up by taking risks in a bid to prove herself, winding up in dangerous situations. Often striking out on her own and cutting corners in her keenness to progress, she still manages to achieve success and has the making of a very competent detective with some tweaks to her impulsiveness. I liked how the author has made Mel the main protagonist as a DC and not one of the higher ranking characters, that most police procedurals have as their chief cast leader. Once again the team is exemplarily led by DI Emma Thorpe and DCI Fiona Gale, a strong female leadership that really works. As a minor character, Robbie, who helps with some decidedly dodgy hacking is a great addition and his involvement in the story gave some light relief to the quite distressing themes. Once again, the author has pulled it out the bag with a first rate police procedural that keeps your attention from the very beginning and I look forward to seeing Mel’s character and career develop further in the future. #FatalHate - 4.5 stars

This is the second book in the DC Mel Cotton series, and I felt that it had a lot to live up to after loving Fatal Trade so much. Well, the author Brian Price did himself proud with this one. When Duncan Bennett is found dead, not far from where he worked, no one knows why anyone would want him dead. Duncan had portrayed himself as a boring no-body, but there was far more to him than anyone released. When DC Mel Cotton and the team began to dig deeper into Duncan’s life, they soon found themselves in a dangerous place. There is so much going on in this story, and the bad guys always seem like they are one step ahead. Just writing about this story makes my back shiver and the back of my neck tingle. I took to a new character in this story, a hacker who was willing to go further than anyone would ask him to go. But would it be a step too far? There are people in high positions that could have him silenced. I just hoped that he made it through. Mel has some hard decisions to make. Firstly she doesn’t know who she can trust and who will believe what she suspects. Oh wow! In some books, you want to feel the rush again. That punch the air moment. The same feeling I got with this. I love this series. This book gives me a tense and believable story, with characters that at times have to go it alone. When I came to the end of this story, I knew it would not be easy to fill the hole it left. Roll on number three. I am waiting already!

This is the second in the DC Mel Cotton Series & they are both superb police procedurals. However, you could read this as a standalone. The prologue is set in 2010, when a young pregnant girl commits suicide. The book then moves to 2020 when Mel’s team investigate the death of a factory worker. It seems to be a run-of-the-mill revenge killing but it turns in to so much more. Extreme political views, drug smuggling, child trafficking (& all that entails), murder & high profile players all raise their ugly head in this taut thriller. A hefty read but I couldn’t put it down. It was only once I’d finished it, did I wonder but how did they…? For me to forgive those easily solved parts, it must be a brilliant read. It is. Read it. And then be as impatient as me for book 3.

Duncan Bennett an employee of a confectionary distributor is discovered dead in a side street near his work. He has been hit over the head with a lump of concrete so its murder. When his flat is searched the police uncover right wing and Nazi memorabilia. Further digging into his background and IT establish links to very dangerous and unpleasant people. However, appearances can be deceptive… Duncan appeared to be onto some anomaly at work just before his murder. The police place an undercover officer into the business and what she discovers blows open a conspiracy of drugs, terrorism, and paedophilia. The local MP is an obnoxious man, the brother of the Home Secretary, who has right wing leanings and seems to be stoking the hatred rather than quelling it. This leaves Mel and her colleagues exposed, battling against a rising tide of racism and violence to protect the public and keep themselves safe. Fans of police procedurals will know that there is the difficult compromise between realism and entertainment. List too many forms and outline too many internal procedures and it becomes boring. Here Mr Price has judged it well giving an authentic feel that due process is being followed without ever getting bogged down. Another criticism is too few characters, where a DCI a side kick and a couple of plods solve a massive case. This is not true in Fatal Hate, any more officers and I would have been drawing myself an organisation chart! Mel is our eponymous heroine but doesn’t but certainly doesn’t hog the story line. Some of the key moments are saved for Mel but the whole team play a role and it feels much better for it. The writing style is breezy, and the plot moves along at a quick pace which is just as well because its full of incident and action packed. The chapters are short and encourage the reader to read just one more. If you read it in one sitting, you may well end up exhausted and a little dizzy. The action set pieces are nicely judged, these are ordinary police officers not superheroes or martial arts experts. This is a book you can quickly get engrossed in. As the plot is incident driven and there are so many characters, there isn’t a great deal of space for detailed characterisation, but none are obviously two dimensional and Mel is particularly well drawn. We can see that she is a doughty and determined woman in a tough environment, but she is also impulsive and fortunate. Jack tells Mel she is using up her nine lives, which she is, though I can see her entertaining us with her scrapes for a few more novels yet. As the series progresses and develops no doubt Mel and Tom will too. The pick of the other characters was Robbie the ‘Paedo Hunter’ and Jeannie McLeod who’s sister was the catalyst for the story. The reader feels he understands Jeannie’s motives throughout the novel but there is a lovely twist in the ending which explains her determination. The central themes are dark, paedophilia, terrorism, racial hate, and class A drugs, a real explosive mixture. These are confidently handled. There are a couple of sensitive scenes which are delicately covered, leaving more to the imagination than is included on the page.. There are some light, funny moments, and bits of banter within the dialogue though. Indeed, I had a good chuckle when the most inappropriate vehicle for a ‘getaway car’ but I won’t spoil the fun by detailing it here. These stopped the novel from getting too dark and kept it entertaining. Fatal Hate is a fast paced, action-packed police procedural with an authentic feel about it.