Great thriller, could no put it down through all the twists and turns. Would highly recommend to fans of this genre.

A very strange read but one that just has to be a case of one more page and then I will stop.... but as we know this does not happen

Recommended highly

This was such a fantastic addition to the already amazing series. This was certainly an edge of your seat thrill ride from start to finish.

A gruesome and completely unbelievable thriller, however I loved it!!! Seeing Nathan deal with his own darkness and needing to prove his innocence led to a compelling read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author, I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.

The protagonists are DS Katie Rhodes and Nathan Radley, who come out of voluntary exile from Wales to investigate a homicide in London, which turns out to be the first of several peppered throughout the book. We are told of Nathan’s amazing, freakish ability to get into the mind of the killer and solve crimes unconventionally, but are not shown this until an episode at the end. Wouldn’t he use his astounding ability to avoid being killed or tortured – again? In an incredible turn of events for its illogic, apparently not.

This is the second in the series; the plot of the first book, which I haven’t read, was repeated throughout the telling. This detracted from the flow of the novel. Christian, Nathan’s dead twin, often features, and as he is not a character in this book and not someone the reader can understand or relate to, this marks as a diversion.

The relationship between Katie and Nathan, which we are told is extremely loving, goes through such twists and turns that I as the reader found it hard to believe in their closeness.

The plot reveals are often based on coincidence whereby for example the doctor remembers the name and all the salient details of a patient of ten years prior; even though he stopped treating her. And we are never told how the food poisoning occurred. The reader is thus required to suspend belief. Also, there is rather more telling than showing in the story.

Nick Hollins sets a cracking pace. The dead bodies pile up. It did seem that the names of the murdered men rolled into one another so it became hard to tell them apart. There were too many characters. There are gory, psychopathic murders, which seem gratuitous, if repetitious, in their detail. The details of the gory crimes on Katie in book 1 are disturbing, and oft-repeated in book 2. It would be good to if Nick Hollins were to write a mystery without this level of violence and gore.

As the antagonists’ good side is shown, there are shades of grey that the reader can relate to. We are given some red herrings, but as these don’t serve as clues the eventual reveals are not particularly surprising or startling. The ending was satisfying.
My review is also found at: https://thereadersvault.blogspot.com/2018/11/book-review-goodnight-song-detective.html

Thanks to Netgalley, #TheGoodnightSongAdetectiveRhodesAndRadleyCrimeThriller #NetGalley for an ARC copy of this book to provide my honest review.

This is the second book in the series featuring Detectives Rhodes and Radley. Having just finished book one, this book can read nicely as a standalone, but why would you want to miss out on a great debut novel?
Another great read, highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for allowing me to read this arc.
This is the second book in the series and I would definitely recommend reading the first one to get background info on the characters.
A brilliant suspenseful thriller. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Excellent book with a great storyline. Characters that are so well written. I would highly recommend this book to anyone!

I really did not enjoy this one as it is over the top gruesome about a serial killer from the start. We meet two people who were affected by a previous serial killer case - including the brother of the killer, who is a criminal profiler - in a remote farmhouse in Wales trying to escape from media. We follow them, so the story is weird. Before too long they are heading back to the city lights as one of their police friends has been found dead in a river, and they are suspected. Why not stay in the Welsh village and walk in to a cop shop? Here we are and that is our alibi? Nor did I see a viable reason for them to be the suspects as opposed to all the lowlifes a police officer would encounter.

A mystery blogger who writes about real crime claims to have found missing pages from the journal of the first serial killer. I gather this sheds doubt on whether the evil brother had done all the killing, but I was so sick of the gruesomeness that I didn't read them. Later, we do see some police team investigations but before too long, the good brother is abducted by someone and locked in a shipping container.

The tale and personalities would have made a lot more sense if I had read the first book, but if I had I might be weary of the continued referring back to those situations. My tip to the writer is to close a case and move on to the next. We also get people thinking more about their innards, old stab wounds, headaches and physical or psychological injuries than about forensics. We're told the blogger can't be found because they are too clever at hiding their tracks. How? Are they using Tor or did they fake an ID for a blog or what? Details are required if you say something like that when everyone else tells us e-mails leave traces.
Maybe the author would feel happier writing horror. I do not read horror. Anyone who does might get on better with this book.
I downloaded an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Dark Lies’ , which is the first book in the Detective Sergeant Katie Rhodes & Nathan Radley series. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of the second book in the series and fortunately I didn’t have too long to wait. The second book in the series ‘The Goodnight Song’ was released on the 17th September 2018. I grabbed my copy, settled down and began to read. Boy oh boy what a read it proved to be. I absolutely loved ‘The Goodnight Song’ but more about that in a bit.
The second book sees a different Katie Rhodes and Nathan Radley. When the book opens they are hiding out in a cottage in Wales. Following the horrific events detailed in ‘Dark Lies’ both Rhodes and Radley felt the need to flee to escape the media attention, to escape all the interest in their case and to evade capture. Rhodes is still recovering mentally and physically. It’s not an exaggeration to say that she has had the rug pulled from under her. As a result of her injuries she is unable to have children, which is a huge thing for her to have to come to terms with. I got the impression that there is a teensy weensy part of her that blames Radley. Following the murder of her partner, Rhodes is determined that she is going to go back to face the music and not only that but she will find whoever killed her partner. Radley is a fascinating character. I suppose you would call him a criminologist or a criminal profiler. To me what makes him unique, is the fact that he is basically a good guy, who has some very deep and dark thoughts. He wrote about some of them in a journal and now pages from that journal are being leaked to a true crime blog. Now everybody knows his deepest, darkest thoughts. He uses his dark thoughts to give him a unique insight into what makes criminals tick and he is invaluable when it comes to giving advice on how to catch them.
Oh my days, this was one hell of a read. The story starts with a bang and with scenes that I am not going to forget in a hurry. The story hits the ground running and maintains the pace throughout. I was hooked from the moment I picked the book up and began to read. For me, ‘The Goodnight Song’ really is a ‘CPID’ (can’t put it down) book. My Kindle wasn’t exactly glued to my hand but it might as well have been because it came everywhere with me. I begrudged having to put the book down and if I did have to put the book down then I was counting down the time until I could pick it up again. I was enjoying the book so much that I didn’t realise the speed with which the page numbers were flying past and how fast the time was going. I seemed to be lost within the pages of the book. The author’s writing style is such that you can’t fail to be drawn into the story and you feel as though you are part of the story. That’s what happened to me anyway. The author uses such powerful and graphic descriptions that it felt as though I was ‘living’ the story. I know, I know it’s a work of fiction but if I love an author’s writing style, I find the story engaging and I like the characters then I tend to ‘live’ the story as if it is real. Reading this book was much like being on a scary and unpredictable rollercoaster ride with lots of twists, turns and unexpected moments that happen and leave you feeling as though you have been punched in the gut.
In short I absolutely loved reading ‘The Goodnight Song’. I would definitely recommend this author and his books to other readers. I can’t wait to read what comes next from Nick Hollin. Here’s hoping that we don’t have too long to wait. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

I loved Nick Hollin's first Detective Rhodes and Radley book, Dark Lies when I read it earlier this year and have been impatiently awaiting this sequel ever since. Taking place a few months after the climactic finale in the first book, I would strongly recommend reading the series in order to fully appreciate the development of the plot and characters.
After the inquest into Katie and Nathan's previous case makes the pair public property, they decide to lie low for a while in Wales. Both are bearing the mental and physical scars of their encounter with the killer nicknamed The Cartoonist by the media and question whether they can ever move past what happened. Their self-imposed exile is brought to a brutal end however, when a close colleague is killed. The police officer's murder bears an uncomfortable similarity to a previous case - one that drove Radley into tortured isolation scared of what he might be capable of. He finds himself under suspicion particularly when pages from his old journal are shared on a true crime blog. Nathan is in trouble; the journal was supposed to be his way of indulging in his disturbing fantasies without actually killing anybody but when his gruesome imagination is mirrored by real life murders, people begin to wonder if he has succumbed to his dark side. He needs to clear his name but he is still tormented by their last case and begins to question just who he can trust.
The pair need to work out who is playing what seems to be a murderous game of revenge but when neither is quite sure of who they can trust, it seems as if the killer is always one step ahead of them. I loved the twists and turns of The Goodnight Song with each victim seeming to suggest another suspect with a different motive until eventually I trusted nobody! Nathan is less able to use his unique insights in The Goodnight Song and it's Katie who drives the investigation, torn by her fear for what she might discover and the frisson of excitement she feels when on a case. Both Rhodes and Radley are damaged by what they have seen and experienced but they aren't the only ones as criminal activities are shown to have long-reaching effects on the victims and perpetrators. The role of the media, whether traditional or social has an important part to play too. Press intrusion caused Katie and Nathan to flee London in the first place and knowing that they are both considered newsworthy has definite psychological effects on the pair. Meanwhile, the public's appetite for crime is also fed through true crime blogs, particularly those that suggest police corruption. When one such blogger claims to have been sent the missing pages of Nathan's journal, it doesn't take long for them to realise just how hard it is to find somebody who has hidden their identity online.
Nick Hollin creates such complex, authentic characters and then he places them in a deliciously intricate and suspenseful plot. Though there is a sense of foreboding throughout, the darkness is allowed to intensify gradually until the tension becomes almost unbearable. The Goodnight Song is intelligent, exciting and original with an absolutely breathtaking conclusion. The Detective Rhodes and Radley series is now confirmed as an absolute must-read for me and I look forward to the next book with eager anticipation.

Gifted criminal profiler Nathan Radley has a unique way of thinking that allows him to empathize with the twisted killers he helps capture.

But Nathan a dark secret. He has more in common with the criminals he hunts than anyone could dare to imagine. He lives in constant fear of losing control of his own dark desires...

When the headless body of a policeman is dragged from the Thames – an exact enactment of one of his oldest and darkest fantasies, only ever confessed in the pages of his teenage diary – Nathan finds himself the main suspect in the most twisted case of his career.

Someone has his diary and is leaking pages to frame him for the disturbing murders he has spent his whole career trying not to commit.

As more bodies surface and more extracts are released, Nathan has no choice but to go in search of the killer to clear his name. He knows it’s someone dangerous, he knows it’s someone he trusted, but how many precious lives will be lost before he can work out who?

Ok wow, so many characters and who to choose from of who did it. Who is writing the blog? So many questions and tooks so long to find answers. I did not read the first book but I felt like I learned enough to know what was going on in this book. Nathan and Katie are messed up emotionally and physically from their past. Hiding away from everything and everyone I think made things worse. But someone has found them and now it up to them to figure out who.

Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and Nick Hollin for an ARC ebook copy to review. As always, an honest review from me.

The book follows a criminal psychologist who works for the police. His twin brother is a serial killer and taunted him endlessly in the last book. His actions have continued to haunt the criminal psychologist throughout this book as well. The premise appears to be the setup for an action packed intriguing read. However it falls short.

At the beginning the story jumps around making it difficult to tell what’s a memory, flashback, reality or something else. Perhaps if I had read the first book in the series it would have made more sense. Also I’m not sure exactly why, but I never got into the book. It didn’t intrigue me, and found myself reading it solely to finish. There was nothing outright bad about the book, but I simply didn’t connect with it.

The story had a lot of action and suspense. And for sure plenty of spine tingling creepiness.

The Goodnight Song unfortunately missed the mark for me.

The Goodnight Song. Nick Hollin

This is one of the most original psychological thrillers I have ever read wrapped up in a very believable Police procedural story.

DI Katie Rhodes has an unusual partner, in all ways, in Criminal Psychologist Nathan Radley.

Katie and Nathan have been hiding away, in an isolated cottage, since the end of the last case they worked on together.

They have no intension of coming back to the real world, until a blogger starts to put posts on line that implicate Nathan in a murder.

Nathan had a troubled childhood, and one of his coping methods was to write a journal. Years later the journal surfaced with a few pages missing. The pages with his darkest thoughts about murders he might commit.

It’s these pages that the blogger has found and is publishing. But where did they get them from.

And how is it that the techniques Nathan wrote about all those years ago are being used on victims today

This is enough to bring Katie and Nathan out of their self-inflicted isolation.

The investigation sees the relationship between the two stretched, even Katie is having trouble understanding how the murder can so closely resemble Nathans writings, although she knows he was with her when the murder was committed.

This is a story of doubt. Nathan doubts himself, as do just about everybody else.

Katie begins to doubt herself and wonder if she has been manipulated.

Nick Hollin has created two of the most compellingly unique characters in current fiction. In Nathan Radley he has introduced a mind that is more crazed-axe-man than cop.

In Katie Rhodes he has taken a normal enthusiastic cop and put her through a set of circumstances that has led her to be an introvert, who manages to doubt what she has achieved in the past, and wonder about the future, well at least at the start of the book.

If you like your books to make you think whilst you’re reading them. If you like a story that’s challenging, and if you like a plot that has you hooked from the first page to the last. Then this book is for you.

The Goodnight Song is the second in the series and can be read as a stand-alone, but I would suggest reading Dark Lies. A link for my review of which is below.


https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2018/03/26/dark-lies-nick-hollin/

Pages: 283
Publishers: Bookouture
Available now

This is the second book featuring Nathan Radley and Detective Katie Rhodes and the events follow on from those in book one which, unfortunately, I have not read. I have to say that, whilst the writer does a good job of filling in as much back story as possible without regurgitating the whole plot of the first book, I think I would have benefitted from reading Book One, Dark Lies, first so I had a full understanding of the events in that book, as they did play a major part in this book. I felt I was floundering a little by not knowing the full story and playing catch up. My enjoyment of this book would have been greatly enhanced had I read book one and not had to concentrate so hard on working out what had gone before to enjoy this story. So, top tip – read Book One first!

That being said, it is possible to pick up the plot from this book as a standalone – it just takes a bit more work – and once I had got it all sorted, I was fully invested in the story. The dynamic between the two main characters is fantastic, the author has written them both brilliantly and we are given the story equally from both their perspectives which is unusual and a really interesting spin on the detective genre, particularly as they are in a relationship which it is fascinating to see from both sides. They had such different takes and approaches to the situation they find themselves in.

Nathan is quite a divisive character, as the good guy with bad thoughts and I can see why people can’t quite decide how to take him. Again, this is a fascinating idea to explore and I really enjoyed watching it play out throughout the book as he switches between hero and potential villain in the eyes of the other characters, and thus in the reader’s eyes, over the course of the story. We are never sure whether he can be trusted or not until the end, in fact he doesn’t even seem one hundred percent sure himself, which keeps the reader continually on the edge of their seats.

This book is a very fast paced and tense thriller, with a myriad of twists and turns throughout. Everyone seems to be hiding something and everyone is a potential suspect to the point where I had absolutely no idea is anyone could be trusted at all or how the story was going to end up and my head was spinning with different theories, none of which turned out to be correct in the end, so the author did a great job of throwing in false clues and red herrings to confuse the reader and keep us on our toes. At times, the story got a little too confusing and convoluted and I got a bit lost. A couple of characters were brought in to the frame on what seemed like fairly tenuous links and flimsy evidence to me and the connections between some of the characters were complicated and coincidental to the point of stretching my credulity almost to breaking point. I am not sure, now knowing the ending, that I would ever have got there in a month of Sundays by myself or that I have still unraveled in my head all the connections but it has definitely given my brain a work out!

This book is an engrossing, fast-paced and intelligent read, suitable for anyone who likes cryptic puzzles and to have their brain and nerves stretched by a book. I would recommend it for crime fans, but make sure you read Dark Lies first to get the most out of it. Now I’m off to rest my poor, tired spaghetti brain.

This is the first book I’ve read by Nick. It’s actually the second book in a series about Katie and Nathan and I feel it might have helped if I’d read the first book before reading this one. It is a real gripping read with lots of twists and turns along the way. If you enjoy crime thrillers then I can recommend this book.

Wow! I must admit that I was very impressed by the suspense in 'The Goodnight Song' as I had absolutely no idea how the story was going to end. Well, let's face it, I had absolutely no idea where the storyline was going to take me full stop! Should I be in a similar mindset to others where Katie and Nathan were concerned? Would it be better if I 'kept' my friends close and my enemies closer?

Honestly, I really didn't know what to think. Of course, deep down, I wanted to think positively of Nathan, but his actions made him come across as though he had something to hide. As for Katie, I could see why her anger decided to surface...to a point, but was there another, deep rooted reason as to why she was letting her anger reach the surface? Even though I started the book being on the sides of Radley and Rhodes, my opinion kept changing throughout the book. I won't tell you what my opinion was towards the end of the book as I think it's definitely a 'personal' thing - one reader may find themselves leaning towards one character, whereas other readers may find themselves putting another character in the firing line even if evidence says otherwise.

I have to say that, whilst I find the entire storyline a continuous case of 'lets put my heart in my mouth', there were times where I felt as though the to-ing and fro-ing was a bit Tom and Jerry. I totally appreciate that there was a lot of content within the book which needed to be explained or to have the suspect put in the spotlight, yet I found it to be a little drawn out at times.

That said, I cannot fault Nick Hollin at all on his witty and highly intense storyline - put it this way, if I were wearing a heart monitor whilst I was reading the book, the bloomin' thing would be beeping something chronic! 'The Goodnight Song' certainly was a gripping read and, despite the slightly drawn out sections, I sped through the book like a bookworm spotting a sign for Bookshop. 

An intricately woven, gripping and fast paced read which kept me breaking multiple speed limits in my mind - throughly enjoyed!

This is the second book in the Rhodes and Radley series and I would recommend reading Dark Lies first. I much preferred the first book but I liked the modern touch of the crime blog in the story, which moved it forward and added credibility. Katie is in a fragile emotional state which accounts for her outbursts of temper. I really enjoyed this read and would recommend the series. Thanks to Net Galley for my copy. Reviewed on Goodreads, Amazon and Facebook.

Thank you to Bookouture for my copy of this book via Netgalley and for letting me take part in this tour. I really enjoyed the first book in this series and was very excited to catch up with Nathan and Katie. This is the second book in the series and would say you do need to read the first book as there are many references to that in this book and many spoilers if you don't.

This book is set several months after the first one. Katie and Nathan have been hauled up away from the press and their superiors since the inquest surrounding the cartoonist ended. Inevitably the two are dragged back to London and back into the spotlight.

Nick kept me on edge throughout this book. Hi writing is addictive and a little bit manipulative. He does an amazing job of creating suspicion all around. There were very few characters you could trust throughout this book and I'm pretty sure I suspected everyone at one point or another.

This was a thrilling rollercoaster of a ride and I really hope that these two will be returning soon.

Detectives Katie Rhodes and Nathan Radley are back in the second book in Nick Hollin’s crime series The Goodnight Song. If you are drawn to this book, I would recommend reading the first book in the series as the second follows on from the events in Dark Lies. I did have to remind myself of what had happened when I started reading this book, so I think you will get much more enjoyment out of the plot and the characters if you start the series at the beginning.

In the second book in the series we get to understand the workings of Nathan’s mind a lot more and what he has been through. He is an intriguing, but troubled character and we can see in this book the effects that his unusual mind has had on him and his family.

When I read the first book, I did struggle to like Nathan and Katie at first, but I really connected with them in this book. Nathan seems to go through a really tough time, and as I was reading, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He and Katie are two well drawn characters, and they make Nick’s writing really addictive as I just wanted things to start going right for them and for them to have a proper chance at having a relationship. I would say his books are definitely more character driven.

This time around, pages of Nathan’s journal, written when he was a teenager, are being published by an anonymous blogger across the internet. The blogger is fascinated by Nathan and how his mind works. The journals reveal disturbing images from inside Nathan’s head, and this doesn’t help when he quickly becomes a suspect in the murder of a police officer, and he is painted in a bad light by the media who are convinced that he is the person who the police are after. Finding out the identity of the blogger was a really gripping part of the mystery as I wanted to know if they had any connection at all to the crimes that were taking place and why they were so interested in Nathan.

Both The Goodnight Song and Dark Lies make for two gripping reads, and the characters are really fascinating. I loved finding out more about Nathan and Katie. I became totally absorbed by the plot and the characters, and I couldn’t wait to see how the story would unfold. Thank you to Noelle Holton at Bookouture for inviting me to take part in the blog tour and for providing me with a copy of the book to review via Netgalley.