Tastes Like Fear by Sarah Hilary

Tastes Like Fear
By Sarah Hilary
Published by Headline (7 April 2016)
ISBN: 978-1472236838

Publisher's description

You'll never be out of Harm's way

The young girl who causes the fatal car crash disappears from the scene.

A runaway who doesn't want to be found, she only wants to go home.

To the one man who understands her.

Gives her shelter.

Just as he gives shelter to the other lost girls who live in his house.

He's the head of her new family.

He's Harm.

DI Marnie Rome has faced many dangerous criminals but she has never come up against a man like Harm. She thinks that she knows families, their secrets and their fault lines. But as she begins investigating the girl's disappearance nothing can prepare her for what she's about to face.

Because when Harm's family is threatened, everything tastes like fear...

My verdict
Tastes Like Fear is the third book in the DI Marnie Rome series, and yet again Sarah Hilary has written a stunning crime novel. This could easily be read as a standalone, although I had already read No Other Darkness, the second book in the series.

Sarah Hilary tackles some very real issues in her books, twisting seemingly normal scenarios into something quite shocking. Tastes Like Fear looks at homeless teenagers trying to find somewhere that will keep them off the streets. When a man offers them shelter, they believe they've found a family set up where they can feel safe and have a sense of belonging. But Harm is lurking at every corner.

Marnie Rome is one of my favourite fictional detectives - she's very real and believable with true emotions. In Tastes Like Fear, she's battling with her own demons too, as her foster brother Steven (imprisoned after the brutal murders of her parents) continues to play with her mind.

The book is chilling and terrifying in places with a complex yet easy-to-read entertaining plot. Sarah Hilary certainly loves to play with her readers'  minds. Tastes Like Fear is a creepy and haunting read. I couldn't put it down and it kept me guessing right until the last page.

I received an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.