*Blog Tour: Dead Ground (Washington Poe #4) by M W Craven

Today I'm on the blog tour for the fantastic Dead Ground (Washington Poe #4) by M W Craven. I received an e-copy from the publisher via Netgalley (which made me squeal out loud - thank you so much). As ever, just brilliant.

Detective Sergeant Washington Poe is in court, fighting eviction from his beloved and isolated croft, when he is summoned to a backstreet brothel in Carlisle where a man has been beaten to death with a baseball bat. Poe is confused - he hunts serial killers and this appears to be a straightforward murder-by-pimp - but his attendance was requested personally, by the kind of people who prefer to remain in the shadows.

As Poe and the socially awkward programmer Tilly Bradshaw delve deeper into the case, they are faced with seemingly unanswerable questions: despite being heavily vetted for a high-profile job, why does nothing in the victim's background check out? Why was a small ornament left at the murder scene - and why did someone on the investigation team steal it? And what is the connection to a flawlessly executed bank heist three years earlier, a heist where nothing was taken . . .

My thoughts?

I totally devoured the latest story in the outstanding Washington Poe series. It's fast paced and twisty with lead characters I absolutely adore.

Poe is in court, with Tilly defending him. He's fighting against eviction from his beloved Herdwick Croft. Just when the judge is going to throw the case out in his favour they are whisked away to help a secret Government agency with a case of a murder in a brothel which Poe seems to think is an open and shut case but it seems there's more to unravel as well as who the victim is and his past.

They'll have to delve deeper. Why was the strange ornament left and why would it have connections to a odd bank heist a few years earlier? Tilly's analytical mind and Poe's past life in the Armed Forces (like the author himself), as well as his own way of working seem to put the MI5 team's noses out of joint - does he care, not a jot.

As ever, the story is littered with lots of humour which had me laughing out loud in parts (#poedoesnteatpasta). We also meet up again with Poe's dog, the lovable Edgar and his boss Flynn.

I did have my suspicions as to who the killer was but of course there's twists which took me by surprise. Absolutely brilliant. I just loved it.