Cover Image: Blunt Force

Blunt Force

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Member Reviews

Be careful what you wish for, Jane! After being removed from the Flying Squad and stationed at Gerard Road in Knightsbridge where serious crime is low, together with old friend and colleague Spencer Gibbs who has been demoted to DS, she feels like she has nothing to utilise her talents and experience. That changes pretty quickly when show business agent Charles Foxley is found in his flat, brutally killed and mutilated. The story takes the detectives into the cut-throat world of agents, directors, actors and models, glamourous on the surface but with a dark and vicious underside. What starts as a simple case of murder explodes into an investigation with shocking and far-reaching consequences.
Jane is progressing and improving with every new story and is now well on her way to becoming the highly respected and brilliant detective of her later years but still she shows sometimes she has much to learn. It was nice to see Dabs again as well as old favourites Gibbs and DS Lawrence, and Operation Countryman gives Jane a chance to redeem her reputation. The author very accurately portrays the mindset of many people at the time, in particular the mistrust of foreigners and the idea that indulging in masochistic activities was deviant. The madam featured was far more clued up when she spoke of it being a release, even a form of therapy for some of her clients and displayed a greater empathy and understanding of human nature than most of the other characters put together. This was another great addition to the series featuring the astute and tenacious Tennison.

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Lynda La Plante https://lyndalaplante.com is the author of nearly 50 novels. Blunt Force was published in 2020 and is the sixth novel in her Tennison series. It is the 3rd book I completed in 2023.

I received an ARC of this book through https://www.netgalley.com with the expectation of delivering a fair and honest review. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own! Due to scenes of violence and mature language, I categorize this novel as R. The primary character is 30-year-old Detective Sargent Jane Tennison.

Having been removed from the high-profile Flying Squad, Tennison is now assigned to the Gerald Road station in Knightsbridge. With the discoveray of a body, the tranquility of the affluent neighborhood is disrupted. The man isn’t simply dead but has been severely beaten, dismembered, and disemboweled.

The man turns out to be talent agent Charlie Foxley. Tennison finds no shortage of suspects. Foxley had earned himself many enemies. Most evidence points towards Foxley’s ex-wife, but not enough for an arrest.

As the investigation moves forward, Tennison finds evidence of drugs, prostitution, and underage girls manipulated into having sex. Her excursion into the world of show business is far from glamorous.

I enjoyed the 11.5 hours I spent reading this 434-page mystery. While the book is part of a series, it can easily be read standalone. The plot was a little slow, and the novel seemed to end abruptly. I do like the chosen cover art. I give this novel a rating of 3.8 (rounded to 4) out of 5.

You can access more of my book reviews on my Blog ( https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/).

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

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Unfortunately, I got a new kindle device and no longer have the download to this novel. I will not be reviewing this title.

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I enjoyed this story quite a bit. I would have liked to have it more evident that it was part of a series though, as I felt a little out of the loop with the characters and their arcs.
I would like to read more of this series though, the main character was very realistic and I felt a connection to Jane. I will definitely be rewinding the series and starting with 1 though!

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Great thriller that kept me turning the pages. Great story, great writing and characters. Really enjoyable and would read this author again.

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Jane Tennison and DS Spencer Gibbs are back after their last adrenaline-filled adventure with the Flying Squad. There has been the murder of a famous casting agent and the ex-wife is found running away from the scene when the police arrive. There are so many different layers to this book from the onset. You have the agents that work with Foxley, the partner, and the estranged ex-wife that Foxley still lives with. The agency has models and a new enterprise that they are trying to get off the ground. There is sadism and drug use. I have read several books by this author and I felt that it took a good, long while before it really got going. There were so many different names and people involved and so many failed starts to get to the bottom of the crime. I thought there were some interesting back stories here, but felt that there was a lot of this book that could have just been removed.. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

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'Blunt Force' is the 6th book in the Tennison series. Detective Jane Tennison's career is going downhill after her job with the Flying Squad comes to an end. Working in an posh London suburb with her old friend D.S. Spencer Gibbs, Jane finally has a case worth solving after a string of petty crimes take up her day. A well-known theatre agent named Charlie Foxley is brutally murdered in his luxury home. Jane and Gibbs are sent to investigate Foxley's murder. Lynda La Plante is my favorite author and I love her unique writing style. Thanks to NetGalley for my digital copy.

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Hard to put this one down. I loved it! This thriller turned out to be a good read and hard to put down. Setting the events in the 80s allowed for a lot of interesting plot twists that would have been difficult to imagine in this day and age, and of course, slipping back in time is always a fun way to escape reality.

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I love the Tennison television series almost as much as I love Lynda La Plante's books featuring the intrepid investigator.
With little reason and less notice, Jane has been sent to work in one of the slowest crime areas. For her, this is a great punishment. When a well known, well despised theatrical agent is found murdered in a particularly gruesome manner in Jane's sleepy little district, she and DS Gibbs will prove themselves once more. Another excellent book in the fan favorite Jane Tennison series.

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Having never read any of the Jane Tennisson novels in either the Prime Suspect series or these prequels, I was coming in with no knowledge about the character. Blunt Force is part of the prequel series that serves as an introduction to how Jane becomes the significant character of the later series.

I enjoyed the flow of the story which resolves around a brutal murder of an entertainment agent. Whilst a lot of characters have been introduced previously, there was enough information given to not feel as if I was missing out too much.

Whilst it is evident an early career case, it wasn't clear when the novel is set, with only some clues relating to cars and typewriters. Surprisingly this didn't detract from the storytelling,and still felt current in a weird way

So whilst I enjoyed the book, I did feel disappointed that the end of the book felt a bit rushed with the main story, and tagging on a mini story relating to a previous case was a bit confusing as a new reader.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in return for a honest review.

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I love the Prime Suspect television series--both the series with Jane Mirren and the more recent prequel--so I know that Lynda La Plante can tell a good story. Unfortunately, I found it hard to get into this book, probably because my mind kept warning to the dramatizations. There was nothing wrong with this book, and any fan of police procedurals will enjoy it. I've just been spoiled by the brilliance of Dame Mirren!

Thanks to the publisher for providing a digital arc on NetGalley.

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This police procedural features Jane Tennison as an early-career detective recently demoted from the Flying Squad after freezing during a critical incident involving firearms. Now in a small local police station, she is left to investigate shoplifting and other petty crimes—until a horrific murder is discovered. The investigation is competent and straightforward though not incredibly suspenseful. In particular, the detectives take their time getting around to the family and cultural angles that are fairly obvious to the reader much earlier in the story. Various subplots, some of which we hope will lead to Jane’s eventual reassignment to a more elite team, are sometimes more exciting than the main investigation. The case is suddenly solved fairly easily, and because of this I expected that there would be more to come, like some high-stakes rescue operation or the discovery of another murder. Instead, the book just sort of ends without resolving a key outstanding question. Part of this is undoubtedly to make the reader feel young Jane’s powerlessness and inability—as a junior offcer—to pursue every angle she wants. Still, I was hoping for a more satisfying ending.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital advance review copy.

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Lynda La Plants is a new to me author. This is book six in a series, but can also be read as a standalone.

I love “who done it” type books, but it took me a long time to finish this one! That’s usually a sign to me that it was just not my cup of tea! Although I liked the main characters of the book, Detective Jane Tennisons and DS Spencer Gibbs, old friends that team up again to find the killer, I felt like it moved to slow. There were side stories throughout the whole book that I felt were a distraction and by the end of the book, I really didn’t care “who done it” anymore!

I would like to read one of Lynda La Plante’s other books. In all fairness, this book might have been better if I had read the other five books in the series first!

Thank you #NetGalley and #BonnierZaffreUSA for providing me an Advance Reader Copy of #BluntForce in exchange for my unbiased review.

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Blunt Force
By Lynda La Plante

4 stars

The fifth police mystery book by La Plante

An engaging read that draws the reader in. Although it is a little slow around the middle as the plot builds.

The story follows Jane Tennison who is attempting to solve a brutal murder in the heart of London's West End. Charlie Foxley has been found viciously beaten to death with a cricket bat - his body dismembered and disembowelled. Tennison must journey into the salacious world of show business to find out which one is the killer before they strike again.

Although the fifth book in a series, it can be easily read by itself.


This title has been reviewed by www.books-reviewed.weebly.com

This title was provided by Netgalley and the publisher in return for an open and honest review.

#BluntForce #NetGalley

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“Blunt Force” immediately immerses readers into the police procedure, the action, and the characters. Jane Tennison is now working out of Gerald Road police station. As a woman officer, she is still not totally accepted in the force, plus during her past assignments, she rattled a few cages.

The narrative is filled with visual descriptions, everyday conversations, and emotional outcomes. There are departmental politics, petty gripes, and justified indignation. The pages bring characters to life by documenting everyday activities with family and friends. There are lots of “petty” crimes and nuisance calls, and the officers all wanted just want something they can get their teeth into, a decent violent crime. When a report comes in of a dog barking all night and still whining in the morning, they get their wish.

The plot is complex and sensational. The police have a victim who is a member of the show business community, so the case is all over the media. During the investigation, all sorts of surprising things come to the surface, and everything is complicated, very, very complicated. Things get nastier minute by minute. An incident from Tennison’s past comes back into play with surprising implications. There are mistakes, successes, missteps, bad hunches, good decisions and the solid investigative police work that readers have come to expect from DS Tennison.


“Blunt Force” is easy to read with likeable and realistic characters. I received a copy of “Blunt Force” from Lynda La Plante and Bonnier Zaffre USA. It is book six of the series, but new readers will easily follow. Any information needed from past books is seamlessly included as part of the current narrative, and will encourage readers to explore previous books.

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The sixth Jane Tennison book was just not as exciting for me as the other five that I have read. This one was the story of Jane being transferred to a police station in an affluent neighborhood with little crime, until a theatrical agent is brutally murdered. The description of the murder scene turned my stomach, so I must add here that there were many extra details in this book that I did not feel added anything to the story except salaciousness. That being said, this is a good crime procedural with many themes, including the world of actors and how deceptive they can be, sexual abuse in that world and the acceptance of a female police officer in an all-male office. At times, I felt that the book was just too wordy and that slowed the pace of the plot. The plot itself was interesting and well-developed as were the characters. My favorite character this time was not Jane, but rather the secretaries and receptionists who had a lot to say truthfully about the death of the rather strange Charlie Foxley. These details seemed necessary and made the story more realistic and appealing to me, a person who is not part of the acting world in any way. All in all, I enjoyed the book but I did not think that I needed to race through it to find out whodunit because that took second place to the drama behind the curtains and in the police station itself. Fans of Tennison may enjoy this new book, but I do think it lacked the humor and general spirit of liveliness that I found in the other books.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Bookishfirst.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guides Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”

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I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had read another book about Jane Tennison and so I was interested in what her newest adventure was. Jane had been kicked off the Flying Squad and was stuck at another quiet station dealing with mostly petty crime (while also going to a shooting range to try and fix her weakness in freezing when a gun was pointed at her) when Charles Foxley ends up brutally murdered. There is much confusion as to motive and suspects though I did enjoy Charles three dogs that kept showing up as no one wanted to deal with them. That was quite funny.

Spencer is also a major character in this novel, also demoted due to some mistakes (throwing a punch at a traffic cop) and is trying to solve this case with Jane. He annoyed me a little due to his temper but he seems to be a good friend to Jane. Both of them did a good job of figuring out what had happened (no thanks to the three special detectives that had a hand in the case). It was a sad ending though and not what I expected. I liked the book up till the end and would not mind reading more books with Jane in them.

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I was hooked by the first page and it kept me on the edge of my seat until the last sentence of the last page. What a wonderful story!

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An entertaining read of the famed Jane Tennison early in her career. Definitely provides you with significant background on janes early struggles on the force. Good character development and an interesting who done it. And Jane also gets to interact again with the Flying Squad.

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It may not be fair to author Lynda LaPlante, but this latest book in her Jane Tennison series will be (and has been) compared and contrasted again and again with the TV version of her character, inhabited by the formidable Helen Mirren.

At this stage (set in the 1980s) Tennison is a bit less intimidating. I was unnerved at times by her timidity and seeming lack of confidence in the face of the blatant sexism of the police force. Then, in a flash, the bold and confident Jane we know would arise, making a forceful point to the men who would overlook her ideas if they could.

Let's clarify that this is not a thriller, but a gritty and seamy police procedural, with a pace more akin to actual police work: a lot of mundane plodding shared in some detail, intercut with a few moments of high adrenaline.

The period detail is wonderful, both in the societal and technical sense. I like almost everything about the book, except for a repeated mistake in word choice: 5 or 6 times throughout the story, the word "inferred" was used instead of implied. A minor but irritating lapse.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bonnier Zaffre USA for an advance readers copy.

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