First To Die by Alex Caan

          This is more of a 2.5 Stars read but I was so disappointed that I have marked it down as a 2 Star in my notebook of doom (as the other half calls it).

The premise for the story itself is very good - a high ranking civil servant is found dead after a public demonstration in central London and the circumstances are very peculiar indeed.  He has clearly been infected with something but will this pose a threat to the general public and can they even find out what caused his brain to melt and his body to erupt in pustules and blisters.  The science is a little flimsy but relatively sound and I liked that explanations of Category A Viruses and Neurotoxins was slipped in to the text in a non-patronising way (very often the science bit can be a little insulting).

As more people turn up missing and dead the race is on to find out just what this infection is and why so many disparate people have died in various violent ways.  The links between them are tenuous and the detective work to prove the links is dealt with well and does keep you interested; especially as you feel as baffled as the police.

Then it all starts to go very wrong, very fast.  It feels as though inspiration left the author and with the deadline looming he had to get some sort of resolution out of this whilst meeting his word count.  Certainly not the first author that has given me this impression and I am sure won't be the last.

The real problem lies with the characters in the story and their backstories which heavily populate the book and serve only to slow the action down and distract from the case in hand.  The biggest nuisance for this is Kate Riley as we are constantly reminded that her and her mother had been in Witness Protection in the States after they had testified against her father.  Now they have a "Watcher" determined to be their undoing - this is not resolved in the book - who pops up in the narrative with startling regularity just when things are getting interesting.

The main player is DS Zain Harris who has a murky past and was "turned" by GCHQ and did some time working for SO15.  This we are reminded off ad infinitum and we also get to go on tangents to his insomnia and illegal drug habit.  He also takes time to lecture us on internet safety and protecting our identity.

In summary I found this to be a frustrating tale with too many side stories trying to be woven in, leaving the whole ultimately confused and frustrating to read.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.