The Killing Pool is set in the mean streets of Liverpool, and readers may well find themselves in something of a love/hate/love relationship with the main character, DCI Billy McCartney, as the action shifts back and forth through a variety of timelines. This is not the sentimental Liverpool of Cilla Black and The Beatles. Rather, it is a grim and violent place peopled with vicious Kurdish gangs and a headless corpse or two.

This is tough and uncompromising stuff which may not be one for the faint hearted, but if you like your crime fiction with killer twists and shout aloud reveals, then The Killing Pool is just the book for you. DeathBecomesHer chose this without hesitation as her crime novel of the year 2013. Reviewed here.