This book was not my favorite. I enjoyed the storyline, but I am realizing that police procedural stories are not my thing. However, the writing was great! It was difficult for me to really get into it but I enjoyed the prose.

A real treat of a book. A police procedural looking into other police officers - all of them very senior - and their wives and families. How does a lowly detective constable ask questions of police superintendants and others with pay grades much above their own. Even the Senior Investigating Officer is junior to most of them.

Loved it - more please. This is an author I'll be watching out for.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I read a free advance review copy of the book. This review is voluntary, honest and my own opinion.

A wonderfully written Police procedural. A well plotted story line that manages to keep the tempo throughout the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the characters are by and large very human.

Thank you Netgalley, Joffe Books and Geoffrey Osborne for thr ARC

Thank you Netgalley for the advance copy. When Detective Superintendent Ralph Blade is called to a murder at Bramshill Police staff college he recognises the victim. Detective Harold Ashington was a former boyfriend of Blade's wife Julie. He is also known as a bully and blackmailer so there are plenty of suspects. As Blade and his team set out to find the murderer another body is discovered. Will they find the killer before anyone else does.

Whodunnit.....?
Whodunnit following a tried and tested formula, none the worse for that. An old Manor House, a mysterious chest and a body. The Manor is question is now a world famous police college, the body a universally disliked Detective. Suspects are numerous. Enjoyable, relaxing and easy reading with a colourful cast of characters.

When DS Ralph Blade is called to investigate a possible murder, he's surprised to see that he knows the victim. Detective Harold Ashington had a history with Blade .... and not a good one. Blade's wife, Julie, had dated Ashington before dropping him for Blade. Ashington never forgave him for taking his girlfriend away .. and was always sure that their son was his.

Someone has killed Ashington, which really comes as no surprise. He was widely disliked and had even gone so far as blackmailing certain people.

Blade has a problem .... his wife, Julie, as he found out later, had arranged to meet Ashington the night he died. He also learned, after the fact, that their adult son was in the same bar/restaurant and saw his mother. Did either of them kill Ashington?

There are many other suspects, most who had motive. Blade finds that even senior officers need to be investigated.

Blade's prime suspect and one of his team are brutally attacked and left for dead.

Blade needs a motive ... and to ensure that his family are not ultimately involved.

This reminds me of authors Ed McBain. P D James, Ellery Queen whose works realistically depicted the routine activities of a group of police officers who frequently work more than one case at a time. This police procedural is well written with deftly drawn characters doing what they do best amid a story of murder and mayhem. It's a short read, around 200 pages, but it's packed with suspense, and a few twists and turns. I enjoyed how the professional lives of Blade and his team blended well with their personal lives. I look forward to seeing this turn into a series.

Many thanks to the author / Joffe Books / Books n All Promotions / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

The Syndicate Six Murders is a gripping police procedural, set in and around the Halls of the renowned Bramshill Police Staff College in scenic Hampshire, England. When a body is discovered in an antique chest in the grand hall of the college, Detective Superintendant Ralph Blade is called in to investigate. The murder victim is Detective Harold Ashington, known well to investigative lead Blade as they've had run-ins before due to Ashington’s shady under-the-table dealings and bullying behaviour. Along with a plethora of other people, Blade also had motive to want Harold dead. Despite the relationship between Blade and Ashington having been fraught and a clear conflict of interest existing, Blade is still allowed at the helm because no one else wants to get involved. Amongst his criminal exploits, Harold enjoyed a spot of blackmail. With the murder scene surrounded by a large gathering of intrigued law enforcement officers, it's going to be no mean feat identifying who decided to take the law into their own hands. Blade and team get to work interviewing possible suspects and then a second body drops...

This is an original, gripping and captivating police procedural and the most fascinating part is that the criminal activities are being carried out by those we trust to not only uphold the law, like the rest of us, but to hold themselves to a higher standard than the rest of the population. Then there's the fact that the killer is a police officer in some capacity which is not unheard of in a crime thriller but it's certainly fairly unique and interesting. I loved that Harold Ashington had crossed so many people in a multitude of different ways that the possible suspects list was seemingly endless making any guesses as to the real culprit way off the mark, and I really didn't see the twists coming. He's a nasty piece of work and most are glad he's been dealt with. This is a fast-paced, dramatic and intense read with enough exciting developments to keep the heart-pounding and a ratcheting up of the tension throughout the story. It all culminates in a shocking and satisfying conclusion. A quick, easy and entertaining read which was fun to rip through in a single evening. Recommended. Many thanks to Joffe for an ARC.

Love this book. I never heard of the author but I will definitely be reading more of their stuff. Kept me on the edge of my seat until the last page

The only word I have for this book is cliche...... Everything, from the characters to the setting with the "big reveal" and dutiful wives having dinner ready is painfully cliched.
Annoyingly there's also a huge error with the timings around Cotter; did he arrive at work at 6.30, 7 or 7.30am? That such a central part of the plot can be so mixed up and full of errors is unforgivable

Thank you to NetGalley & Joffe Books for this advance copy #THESYNDICATESIXMURDER #NetGalley

In this tale of the classic whodunit style, Blade and his team have to find out who murdered Chief Superintendent Harold Ashington who blackmails his way to the top.

There are plenty of suspects of who would have wanted Ashington dead….

Was it Dr. Stoker who discovered that Ashington seduced his daughter?
Was it Blade’s wife Julie for thinking that maybe Ashington was her son’s father?
Was it Blade himself in a jealous rage for finding out that Richard could not be son?
Was it Angela Liddell who accused Ashington of sexual assault, that Ashington denies?
Was it Felicity Dumble who Ashington accused of having an affair?
Or was it Mrs. Ashington herself?

Lies. Alibis. Motive. Murder

Everyone lies.
Everyone had an alibi.
Everyone had a motive.
But who is the murderer?

DS Ralph Blade never liked Detective Harold Ashington. They had history and Ashington never forgave Blade for marrying his ex-girlfriend, Julie, and he was convinced that Blade's son was his own. But now Ashington is dead. He had been a bully and a bully and blackmailer who was widely disliked. Blade's prime suspect and one of his team are brutally attacked and left for dead. Can Blade and his new second in command, Detective Dorothy Fraser uncover who has a motive.

This was a really easy book to get into. A police Detective has been murdered and he's just the first as the body count rises. There's a love triangle between Blade, Ashington and Blade's wife,Julie. I did not like any of the characters as they seemed a little flat. But it will be interesting to see how they develop. An interesting whodunit. This is another quick read with just 150 pages.

I would like to thank #NetGalley, #JoffeBooks and the author #GeoffreyOsborne for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Syndicate Six Murder takes place in rural Hampshire, England in a world-famous Police Staff College. The murder victim is Detective Harold Ashington and since the murder scene is surrounded by police, the main suspects are all officers of the law. Lead investigator Detective Superintendent Ralph Blade has a history with the deceased and has motive to want him dead (as do many other people). The book is a fairly fast paced police procedural with an entertaining cast of characters and an interesting investigation thread.

My favorite part of the book was by far the relationship between the different people in the investigative team. I thought the main three - Ralph Blade, John Hyde, and Dorothy Fraser - were really well fleshed out characters. The other members of the investigative team did tend to blend together more for me, but they had much less character development than the main three. I liked how we got scenes in each of the main three's home lives with their spouses and their individual routines. It really helped to see them as their own characters with their own complex lives. We don't get a lot of these home scenes, but the ones we do get are packed with information and are used very effectively. The reader gets small glimpses into the lives of these officers and then we can see how some of their home lives bleed into the case their working on which is pretty interesting. These home scenes were often somewhat lighter than the investigation scenes, so they served as very brief times where the tension and pacing could let up a bit and give the reader a bit of a break before diving back into the story.

The pacing of this book was pretty fast, but not in a bad way - it really felt like an hour long episode of a TV crime drama. I'm not usually fond of short or fast paced books, I want to read something I can really sink my teeth into and get to know the characters. I'm more of a character-driven reader than a plot-driven one so longer books are usually my preference. In this case, however, I'm glad I made an exception and picked up this 150 page book because there is so much packed into those pages that it really doesn't fall into the normal pitfalls of short books for me. The narrative managed to cover a lot of ground and the characters had a good amount of depth to them. The mystery wasn't particularly complex or convoluted - but the investigators did chase down a lot of leads and suspects in the 150 pages. There wasn't a whole lot of plot outside of the main investigation, which again helped the pacing to stay on a quick track. There is a deadline given to Blade at the beginning of the investigation so he needs his people to work quickly and that pressure does come through in the narrative to the reader. The only downside to the faster pacing was that there were so many different people introduced - especially in the beginning - that it was hard to keep everyone straight. I had to keep flipping back a few pages to figure out who some people were. But after the first 25% of the book, I had the different characters down pretty well. I, naturally, wished we were able to get more of the character's backstory and history (especially more of Ashington's history with other officers) but that would have really dragged down the pacing of the book. I do think we got all the information we needed as a reader but there were just some characters and situations that I really wanted more of.

One thing that irked me a bit was the lip reading that was introduced. From what I understand based on some YouTube videos made by deaf/Deaf/hard of hearing people, is that lip reading is very difficult to do and even the most skilled lip readers can often only catch a certain amount of words and then have to fill in the blanks to the rest of the conversation. So the fact that the DI Dorothy Fraser tells a story about being on surveillance and watching criminals having a conversation in a bar and being able to get all the details of the crime they were planning just from lipreading felt unrealistic and a bit convenient. Luckily, the lip reading only came into play a few times, mostly at the beginning of the book, and no major investigative steps were taken due to the information gathered from the lip reading so it in the grand scheme of the plot, it wasn't too heavy handed.

Another thing I did find it a bit annoying was that Blade was pretty sure he had figured out who the murderer was a few days before actually arresting them (to give his team time to gather evidence, run tests, etc) but he wouldn't tell anyone (not even the reader). He would think to himself something along the lines of "I'll let him go investigate that thread but I'm confident I already know who did it". I understand this can build tension in the reader because we want to know who the killer is also. But the fact that we had to wait for Blade to make his grand presentation and arrest the killer at the end, in front of everyone, had me rolling my eyes a bit. And maybe other readers will be able to pick up on stuff I didn't in the narrative and figure it out ahead of time, but I felt the breadcrumbs left for the reader were pretty limited as far as being able to figure it out for ourselves. That being said, the ending did make complete sense and I was glad the motive didn't come out of left field or anything so it was satisfying even if I had to deal with Blade teasing the reader for a handful of pages.

Finally, this book is set in England and relies heavily on English slang. I assume the author is also British, but he doesn't have any author information listed on GoodReads and I can't find any other author webpages or any other details about him so I'm not entirely sure. In any case, the slang is pretty widely used in this book and some of the characters are specifically pointed out as being from specific parts of the country so they have very particular accents and slang. I'm an American reader, but I do watch a ton of British TV shows and comedians so I feel that I have a pretty good grasp on the slang terms and I personally didn't have any trouble understanding the writing. I did appreciate having a frame of reference so when the one character is described as having a Geordie accent so then going forward I would read her dialogue in that accent. There is a glossary of terms in the back of the book so anyone who isn't as comfortable with British slang will be able to still follow along. The slang usage isn't overwhelming or overdone by any means, but it is fairly consistent throughout the book.

This is not my normal type of book but I really enjoyed it.
I found the characters interesting and I look forward to reading more books featuring them in the future.
The book kept me interested and I wanted to keep reading it.
I will definitely look forward to reading more by this author in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Joffe Books for my ARC.

The Police Staff College in Bramshill, Hampshire has had a murder, one of their own - Chief Superintendent Harold Ashington. Even with his close links to the man Detective Superintendent Ralph Blade is put in charge. So he and his team investigate.
I did not find many likeable characters, though all of them are the suspects, of which there seemed to be many.
An enjoyable enough story which just kept my interest to the end. Overall a good start to a new series, and I am interested to see how the characters develop.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Joffe Books for an advance copy of The Syndicate Six Murder, a police procedural set in the Hampshire trading college at Bramshill.

Superintendent Ralph Blade is called to Bramshill for a murder enquiry, a body has been found in an antique chest in the hall of the college and even worse he recognises the victim, Superintendent Harold Ashington, a man he has a history with. Suspects abound as Ashington was known for a spot of blackmail.

The Syndicate Six Murder is a simple tale of whodunnit. Blade and his team interview various suspects, including his own wife and son, until he comes up with a solution. The plot is fairly well thought out but there is little sense of professionalism about the investigation, like Blade should never have been allowed to lead it with family involvement. There is an old fashioned feel to the novel with its emphasis on interviewing and motive which latter seems to revolve entirely around sex and relationships. The body being found in the chest is as imaginative as it gets.

I found all the characters clunky and many of their reactions to events and what is said to them unnatural, although I understand that they are necessary to further both the suspense and the plot.

The Syndicate Six Murder is an easy way to while away a few hours.

Set in Hampshire. we get introduced to D.S. Ralph Blade him and C.S. Harold Ashington both have history, Then Ashington is found in Bramshill murdered Poisoned with Cyanide Ralph's wife Julie and son Richard are involved and this is all about revenge and threats, and Blade is signed onto the case along side D.I. Dorothy Fraser so he heads off to Bramshill, and another similar murder occurs whats going on? is this a double killing. so look out as this book has a lot of twists, and suspects along the way. all coming out the woodworks, it's a fabulous who dunnit that I enjoyed tremendously right through.
My first book from this author who i think will go a long way with his writing in the future.
And Blade and Fraser have definitely nailed this case and they both make a damned good team, its left me looking forward to more that I will look out for. Brilliant.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC!

Dead body of Detective Ashington is discovered at the Police Staff College in rural Hampshire. The members of the area try to discover what happened while actually discovering the truth about hidden lies and secrets with their families and a love triangle gone wrong.

This book caught my attention from the start, but then quickly fizzled out. You immediately are interested in the dead body and even the authors intro for inspiration for the book, but I think it could’ve been better executed as a short story Bradbury-style. The love triangle turned the tone of this book from more of an intense thriller to a family drama vibe which I wasn’t too crazy about. Some of the character development was indistinguishable and the writing was a little quick. With a thriller, the pace can already feel fast enough so it’s nicer when it’s less of “he said she said” type of sentences. Otherwise a fun thriller read for spooky season!

Even though Blade has a fraught history with Ashington, a superior police officer found murdered in a chest at a closing police academy, his bosses let him lead the case.
The man who is the IT expert at the academy is away fishing and they're waiting for him to unravel the glitches on the tape, but as soon as he arrives, he too is murdered.
On top of the difficulty of the case, Blade is having domestic problems as well as getting used to the new members of his hastily assembled team.
This was a pleasant read, but I had a bit of difficulty liking any of the characters, they were all a bit flat to me; it was hard to understand some of their actions. Still, good enough to read to the end...Thank you NetGalley and Joffe Books for the eARC.

Blade is charging up an investigation that hit close to home in many ways. He finds his wife's ex boyfriend murdered and stuffed into a chest at a closing police academy and is told by his higher ups to still lead the case. He's leading a new team that he has to create rapport with while trying to run a job at the most functioning level.

This book just didn't wow me the way I thought it would. You have a lot of cops, I mean a lot a lot of cops working on a murder case...of a cop. I often got confused with all of the titles and who was reporting to who through this. I also did not gain a trust or relationship with the characters, I couldn't understand their actions or movements throughout. Kudos on the glossary of British terminology though, I enjoyed that was added in!

Thank you to Geoffrey Osborne, Joffe Books, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Just the way I like my police procedurals - to the point, early death, good team work, some drama and group unveiling.
Blade's nemesis from his beat days is found dead at a police training campus. His wife had dated him before breaking up and beginning their relationship. And his son's paternity is under question.
Fast paced. Great characters. Culprits were easy to guess - I was intrigued enough to finish.
I also enjoyed the author's backstory - visiting a police training campus shortly before it closed, ghosts in the halls.
Great read.