The Family Business Paperback – 6 Aug. 2020

Another enjoyable trip back to Dundee, with three interlinked cases for DI Dania Gorska & her journalist brother Marek Gorski to solve.As the others in the series a bit gritty & not for the faint hearted, as deals with missing children.

Another intricate plot, with human characters.

This is the third book in a set of three. The main character is Polish Detective working for Police Scotland based in Dundee. The books read well and in my opinion would adapt well for a TV Police series, Netflix did you read this!

The third book in this series did not disappoint. I would recommend this series to anyone. True to the locality and readers in this area can picture where everything is happening.

Enjoyed this book especially if you live in the area where the story is set.

This is the third in Hania Allen's Dundee based crime series featuring the recently promoted Polish DI Dania Gorska, with a sideline as a talented concert pianist, with a journalist brother, Marek Gorski, whose paths tend to cross in their separate investigations. Dundee is a city gripped by fear and anger, when a second child, 11 year old Euna Montcrieff, flower girl and bridesmaid, disappears from a wedding reception at a hotel, taken by a killer rapist who has developed an MO of leaving a trail of the young girl's clothes that leads to the bleached dead body. The police team is led by DI Owen McFadden, the search teams for Euna including Dania and Marek, and it is Marek who stumbles across the body of a chained 9 year old boy, dying through starvation many years ago, a cold case that Dania gets to be in charge of.The boy turns out to be Cameron Affleck, whose father, Gregor, has never gotten over the grief of his loss, cutting a pitiful figure through the years as he has dug through numerous sites in the city looking for the body of his missing son. Gregor is a wealthy man, a taxidermist who owns and runs the Dundee Natural History Museum, with his other sons, the cruel and ruthless Ross and Kenny, both of whom live with Gregor. Ross is married to Allie, he is an abusive and coercive husband who terrorises and isolates his wife. Gregor is desperate to find out what happened to Cameron all those years ago, but he is not so keen on the police coming across his other rather more nefarious activities, that involve the local Freemason Lodge that all the family males are members of, run by his novelist brother, Niall. After a tip off from an informant, Marek goes undercover at the Freemason Lodge as a archivist, a dangerous position, after the suspicious disappearance of the previous incumbent, Murray.Allen gives us a well plotted and fascinating narrative that engages, as Dania and her close team of DS Honor Randall and DC Hamish Downie, are caught between two separate investigations, the cold case that has her delving into the past of the Affleck family and the present horrors of a serial child rapist killer. Interweaved between them is Marek looking into the role of the Afflecks in the closed and secret world of Freemasonry, getting closer to receptionist, Allie. Whilst I very much enjoyed reading the latest in this series, for which I gave perhaps an over generous four stars, there is an issue that Allen needs to address if she wants to ensure the long term success of the series. She needs to more overtly address the much needed character development of Dania, and make her feel more like a real, rounded and authentic protagonist. I love the inclusion of Polish history, culture, food, music and politics, but it will not be enough to sustain my interest in the series in the future. I look forward to reading the next in the series in the hope that Allen tackles this critical issue. Many thanks to Little, Brown for an ARC.

I'd read the first 2 books in this series and couldn't wait to read this. Didn't disappoint. Really enjoyed this

A very strange and intriguing storyline involving Masons based in Dundee, Scotland. Police officer Inspector Dania Gorska from Poland has to keep on top of the murder and rape of young girls and the cold case from 13 years ago when they find the body of a missing boy.when they were searching for the abducted girl. Great story, will look forward to more from this author.