This is the second book of a series about investigative reporter Olivia Wolfe.
Author: L.A. Larkin –
Publisher: Clan Destine Press –
She is a tough, rides a Harley-Davidson, has a few body piercings and carries a waterproof day pack with her everywhere she goes – everywhere.
It has saved her life a few times.
She bears the scar above her right ear from sniper fire in Afghanistan.
But she is healing, the headaches have subsided.
She is back in London when she finds out from Superintendent Detective Dan Casburn, that one of her sources has been killed.
The source had information about the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Harold Sackville.
Olivia is not sure if Dan is a person she can trust.
They have history, and when he tries to warn her to back off and walk away from the story Olivia senses more is at play.
With the help of some friends at a PI agency she starts to investigate (she is an investigative reporter after all) Harold Sackville’s accounts.
What starts as a story about a politician having an offshore tax-haven in the British Virgin Islands morphs into a complex story about a sophisticated poaching syndicate which smuggles rhino horns into Asia.
The syndicate is headed by Tan Nguyen, “respected businessman, philanthropist, pillar of the community, a champion of wild-life protection and children everywhere.”
Betrayed and isolated, Wolfe is hunted by a faceless killer as she takes readers on an action-packed ride from London to South Africa uncovering lead after lead in her quest to uncover the truth.
She enlists the help of Mike Thusago, a South African police officer, whom she worked with earlier while covering a story on crystal meth being produced in Soweto.
The reader is also treated to a hired assassin who sadistically tortures his victims before murdering them all the while live streaming the event freaks that get off on that sort of thing.
He soon gets orders to add Olivia to his list of kills.
I am not used to reading such violence and have to say I found it a little difficult to get through a few paragraphs (which is why I quickly skimmed over them).
It was night-time and I didn’t want those images in my dreams.
But it was hard not to leave Olivia.
Prey is a fast-paced book – so fast that I had to re-read several parts to make sure I understood what was going on.
I haven’t read Devour, L.A. Larkin’s first book of the series, and although I feel this carries as a stand-alone story I think reading the first book would have helped me to connect the dots better and understand Olivia’s history with Dan and the mysterious Vitaly (or is it Dmitry?), who seems to slip in and out of her life at very convenient times.
Parts of this book may disgust you, appall you, freak you out – but I guarantee you will not be bored.
It really is a page turner.
Thrillers usually aren’t my genre but I enjoyed reading this book and have now started on Devour.
Kim Reardon