4☆ A Gripping, Dark, Twisty, Crime Thriller.

Left for Dead is the third book in the series, I wish I had read the previous books as there is alot of references to previous storylines which I found hard to follow and felt I was missing out.

We meet Samuel straight away. Samuel is a family man, rich, successful but hides a dark & sinister side. In his locked drawer at work contains his 'murder list' But where does he fit into this Twisty story!

DI Amy Winter discovers a body of a young women, but not just any body, the body has been used as a mannequin in a wedding shop window. Unfortunately they get there too late as the woman is already dead.

But then another body turns up and DI Winter's is on a race against time to catch the killer before he strikes again.
The only thing they both have in common is that they are 'Sugar Babes' dating older men. Could this be the link that helps Amy solve the case?

As I mentioned before this isn't a standalone story and had I read the previous books and had the connections this would have been a 5☆ review!

LEFT FOR DEAD is a fantastic crime Thriller it's dark, sinister, gripping, gritty, great police procedural, and there are some brilliantly plotted twists that kept me guessing.
So if you are looking for a new Crime Thriller Series, with a strong Female Detective, A Compulsive and Dark plot then I highly recommend you picking up LEFT FOR DEAD by Caroline Mitchell.

Thank you to Sarah at BOTBS Tours for this copy which I reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

I requested this book on Net Galley after several of my Goodreads friends recommended it, especially since they said that even though it's the third in a series you don't have to have read the others to enjoy it. I didn't really find that to be true. I think if I had read the first two books I would have been much more involved in the very intense back story. The main character is a detective whose biological parents were serial killers. She was adopted at 4 after she apparently told a social worker something that led to investigations. Then apparently in one of the earlier books, she reported some sort of devious doings by the police that had led to her parents' arrests and it led to a retrial of her terrible mother. I have no idea about the details of this, and it led to spending half the book trying to figure out what was going on.

The actual murder case of this book is mildly interesting but eh... I don't know. We know all along who the murderer is because his is one of the POVs of the book (along with his wife and the main detective, and I think her DI love interest/new boss is also). There are a few twists and they're mildly good. The killer is a rich, successful psychopath who kills women and poses them as they're dying. The DI is caught up in her drama with her psychopath mother and is one of those vigilante cops who takes risks that are totally inappropriate for cops and would almost certainly get her killed (is she this stupid? really?). She's very conflicted about whether she's got murderous blood apparently, but I'm not sure why and she clearly doesn't. I don't know. I've read a lot worse and I did like the book, but I didn't love it.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

Thank you, NetGalley for eArc to read and review.
I love a good DI mystery and really enjoyed the character of Amy Winters. I did not read the previous two books in this series however I was able to read this book without any issues or feeling like I was missing something. I will however go back and check out the other books because I really enjoyed the writing and the main character.
This was a great mystery book! I enjoyed reading from various characters POV and delving into separate interpretations of events.
The plot was interesting and I really liked the way in which the case progressed and was resolved! This was overall a great mystery novel and I look forward to reading more from this series.

The Amy Winter series is by far my favourite Caroline Mitchell collection. Fast paced and addictive from the very first page. I cant wait for the show down between her and Lillian.

Left for dead is a crime story that is part of series. Even though part of series,you understand what the story is all about. It's really really interesting how their are so many point of views going on yet you are captured in the book and you are not distracted or feel that the story has stretched. It's quite a story. It's crime and its creepy but the way the characters build up in the book is what is also a major point of the book. I really liked how DI Amy Winter character is strong on her emotional quotient and she is not stuck in the stereotype of the manly figure one often reads when women are cops in the book. Amy Winter has a personality of her own and that is exactly why this particular character stood out for me.

While I did enjoy this book I hadnt known it was the 3rd book in a series. I definitely felt lost at times. I will need to go and start at the beginning then hopefully a lot will make more sense.

My first book by Caroline Mitchell and Left for dead is the 3rd in the series featuring DI Amy Winter. It can be read as a stand alone but there are many references to Amy’s past in previous books.
DI Amy Winter and her sister was window shopping when they come across a bridal display and the mannequin looks too realistic and she was right as it was a dead body modelling a bridal dress.
Told in points of view, Amy’s and the murderer. It is a well told story, but not much police procedural. Amy has a gung ho attitude & likes to go it alone. Plenty of twists and turns. I would like to read the first two books in this series to get a better understanding of Amy as she is facing emotional torments.

Excellent story from Ms Mitchell. I love her books. The characters are always interesting and intriguing. Look forward to more books by Caroline.

I really enjoyed this book and will give it a huge thumbs up. With a great story line and excellent main characters - I would highly recommend this book.

Definitely the best book of the series so far!

Across the books Amy Winters is a DCI who heads a team that specialises in high-profile murder cases. In each book, she must solve a murder whilst the secrets from her own dark past unravel.

Evidentially, there will be a forth and I can not wait to see what happens next.

I want to give a big thanks to #NetGalley #CarolineMitchell and #AmazonPublishingUK

‘"It will never end. You’re so tied to me, I may as well be holding the umbilical cord in my hand. "

#LeftForDead by Caroline Mitchell is the third in a series of books featuring DI Amy Winter. It is my first book I have read in the series and it works as a stand-alone seamlessly. I did not feel I missed any information. This book was definitely a quick paced page turner! I found it very well written.

I really enjoyed learning about how a psychopath thinks. The characters were fleshed out very well. DI Amy Winter is the daughter of serial killers. I found her very likeable as the heroine of the story. I had instant dislike for the villains of the story, Amy's mom Lillian and the killer in the current case Amy is working on. The plot was fascinating and had many twists and turns.

I had one small problem with the book in that I felt the ending lacking something, like maybe it could have been stronger.

Overall, I thought Left for Dead was a very entertaining story that hooked me from the beginning, I definitely could NOT. PUT. IT. DOWN! I would very highly recommend this book to my fellow readers and to anyone who enjoys a good psychological thriller. This is the second book I have read by Caroline Mitchell and definitely won't be my last!!!

This is the third book featuring DI Amy Winter. It would stand alone on its own merit, however if you can read the books in order it will help you to understand more of the back story.

Caroline Mitchell once again manages to create fast moving story. In this instance the story is opens with an intriguing prologue which suggests a lot, but left me interested to know if more about the characters, who would come into the spotlight as the real villain.

I like the style of her writing and characterisation. Her experience as a serving police officer shows through with some pithy dialogue between DS Amy Winter and her colleagues. There are some witty one-liners.
Plenty of suspects.
Plenty of twists.
Tension throughout.
There are certainly some disturbing themes in this novel.

The story builds to a dramatic conclusion with sufficient plot twists to maintain interest. I for one look forward to future instalments in the DS Winter series.

My thanks go to Netgalley and the publisher, Thomas & Mercer for a copy in exchange for this review.

What a page-turner! The story pulled me in immediately with the opening of a woman's body being staged in a bridal display in a shop window. The author makes it clear almost immediately who the killer is - but is he really the killer? There's a surprise near the end that I hadn't expected.

The characters are interesting, and the story is told well.

I did a little research on the author, whom I'd never heard of before, to see if she had other books I might want to read. I was surprised to find that this book is the third in a series. Surprised because the book was written well as a stand-alone, but Amy's backstory about her family was clearly part of the previous books.

Would recommend as a good, interesting summer read.

This is the third book in the series and there's obviously a fair bit of backstory that I'd missed out on. I will go back and read the first two in the series and then this one to see if they impact on this review because I also didn't warm to Amy very much as she was a bit gungho for my liking. I did enjoy the twists and turns of the book and am definitely keen to read the first two books in the series to see what I'm missing out on.

This is the third in the Amy Winter series which I didn’t realise when I initially chose the book on Netgalley. I thought that with it being the third in the series it would detract from the enjoyment of the book, but I was happily surprised when it could be read as a stand alone. I may have found it useful to have read the previous books in the series for extra background, but this didn’t take anything away from the story.

The story was well written and had a couple of twists in it that I wasn’t expecting. The character of Amy did get on my nerves at times with the attitude of “going it alone” with disregard for procedures, but overall she is a likeable character. I was quite surprised to find out Marianne’s involvement with the attack on Claire, which was a nice twist and explains why she felt so paranoid of Sam’s interest in Amy, I think it also went some way into explaining the reasoning behind their relationship and the guilt she felt. I might have to invest in some time reading the others in this series to understand Amy’s character more fully.

Having read the first 2 books in the Amy Winter series, I was looking forward to this new one. It certainly didn't disappoint. A young woman has been murdered and placed in a bridal window display in place of the mannequin. We learn quite early on who the perpetrator is, as parts of the story are told from his point of view. I really liked that. When a second woman is murdered in a similar way it transpires that both were on a high end escort site, so Amy and her team have their first real lead. This is a real page turner, which will keep you guessing right to the end. Warning - some parts of the story are not for the faint hearted! Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
Copied to Goodreads.

This is the 3rd book in the series. You can read this and still enjoy it without having read the first two, which is what I have done. I do really want to go and read the first two now after reading this one. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's all about a DI Amy Winter, who while out shopping with her sister, comes across a gruesome shop window, with a real woman dressed in a wedding dress like a mannequin, except she is dead. The story follows her trying to figure out who the killer is that is targeting young women online and murdering them, then leaving them in a public place for everyone to see.
We find out who the killer is pretty early on in the story, but this allows part of the narrative to be from the killers POV. So rather than this book be a 'who's done it', it's more of a 'will they be caught' kind of story.
There is a lot of reference to the background of Amy Winter, which would have been covered in the first 2 books. She is the daughter of a serial killer who is currently in prison. I definitely want to read them to find out more of her background.
There will be a 4th book coming out in the series, which I will definitely be checking out.

I really enjoy reading Caroline Mitchell’s books and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the DI Amy Winter series so when I saw this book on NetGalley I may have squealed a little.

I was so excited to dive back into this series and reading it definitely felt like coming home to family. Unfortunately life and work got in the way and it took me much longer to read this book than it should have.

I feel like this was a good read but that outside stuff possibly took over and impacted how I felt about this book.

I enjoyed it for the most part though and I’m definitely looking forward to the next book in the series.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Caroline Mitchell for the opportunity to read this book.

Left For Dead by Caroline Mitchell is the third book in her DI Amy Winter series, but is the first one I’ve read. It does read very well as a standalone, but there are references to past events, so I would recommend reading the first two books in the series before starting this one, which I think would make for an even richer reading experience. Having said that, though, having read some of the author’s previous books, I knew I was in for a fast paced and gripping read. And wow, that is exactly what I got!

This third book in the series is a dark and disturbing tale that drew me in from the very first page and didn’t let go until the final page had been turned. Unusually, you get a glimpse inside the mind of the killer from the very start, something that worked incredibly well here and didn’t take anything away from the intrigue and suspense as we follow DI Amy Winter as she tries to solve the murders.

Although new to the series, I was drawn instantly to the fascinating Amy, intrigued to find out what makes her tick and eager to learn more about her backstory, which I most definitely will do by going back and reading the first two books in what is shaping up to be a fabulous series!

In this story, we first see Amy as she is out shopping with her sister. Admiring a Valentine’s Day window display, she suddenly notices blood oozing from the mouth of the mannequin. Recoiling in shock, she realises that this is no display, but a real person who has been left to die on her macabre throne for all to see. And then a second victim is found…

What follows is a brilliantly written police procedural thriller that sees Amy on the hunt for a psychopathic serial killer. With two victims already, how long will it be before there is a third? With the clock ticking, Amy knows she must do everything within her power to find the killer before he strikes again. But with her personal life going into freefall, can Amy get to the truth before it’s too late? Or is she at risk of putting her own life in danger?

Caroline Mitchell is a former police detective and her experience of the inner workings of the police force is clear to see, but she also somehow manages to get inside the head of the killer himself with ease, turning this story into an even darker and more disturbing tale as she realistically portrays the sick mind of a psychopath.

Left For Dead is a fast paced and gripping read that had me enthralled from beginning to end. I was on the edge of my seat throughout, desperate for DI Amy Winter to capture the killer before it was too late. With a strong supporting cast of characters and a female protagonist you can’t help but root for, this is a book I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend. I can’t wait to read more from this talented author in the future.

Oh my days! I loved every single page turning minute of Caroline Mitchell’s #LeftForDead. Not only is it my favourite in the series, but I think it is the authors best book yet! Intense, dark and quite Luther-esque...I need to catch my breath now!

5 glorious ⭐️’s

Full review will be on my blog/link to be updated.