Bound by Vanda Symon

Blog tour: 1 to 31 March 2021

Synopsis

The passionate, young police officer Sam Shephard returns in a taut, atmospheric and compelling police procedural, which sees her take matters into her own hands when the official investigation into the murder of a local businessman fails to add up …

The New Zealand city of Dunedin is rocked when a wealthy and apparently respectable businessman is murdered in his luxurious home while his wife is bound and gagged, and forced to watch. But when Detective Sam Shephard and her team start investigating the case, they discover that the victim had links with some dubious characters.

The case seems cut and dried, but Sam has other ideas. Weighed down by her dad’s terminal cancer diagnosis, and by complications in her relationship with Paul, she needs a distraction, and launches her own investigation. And when another murder throws the official case into chaos, it’s up to Sam to prove that the killer is someone no one could ever suspect.

My review

After reading the third book in the Sam Shephard series, Containment, last year for the blog tour, I was very keen to read this next instalment! I love a good police procedural and this is certainly an addictive series!

The story begins with 17-year-old Declan Henderson returning home one evening after band practice with friends to the shocking and gruesome discovery that his dad, John, has been horrifically murdered and his mum, Jill, who was bound, gagged and injured, was forced to watch the whole distressing event.

Detective Sam Shephard, Detective Paul Frost (her boyfriend) and several other members of their team are first on the rather remote scene, which is close to the eerie site of the former Seacliff Mental Hospital, where 37 women were killed in a fire in the 1940s. The wealthy Henderson family’s house is large and secluded with a long driveway and expensive-looking gates and there’s no sign of forced entry.

When Sam speaks to Mrs Henderson at the hospital, she is distraught and traumatised and says that her husband opened the door to two masked men who rushed their way into the property, shot him at point-blank range and then tied her to a chair.

John Henderson was thought to be a respectable businessman at a company called Eros Global, selling and distributing vitamin-type supplements and sexual enhancers, but it turns out that he’s involved in some rather dodgy stuff on the side and has several rather unsavoury characters as close business acquaintances.

When evidence is found that links two of these dubious characters to the crime scene, all the pieces of the jigsaw seem to be fitting together remarkably easily! Sam isn’t so sure and despite her colleagues’ misgivings – they’re convinced it’s an open-and-shut case – she is determined to get to the bottom of the investigation and discover who killed John Henderson.

In her private life, Sam’s dad is terminally ill and she has a rather fractious relationship with her mum and they’ve never really got on. She hates seeing her strong farmer father deteriorating and would rather throw herself into work than watch him slowly die.

Overall, I really enjoyed this well-crafted and cleverly plotted novel. The storyline was gripping with plenty of action, lots of misdirection and some surprising revelations and the short, snappy chapters encouraged me to read on so I flew through the book in less than a day!

Despite being a police procedural, Bound contained some great humour and, throughout the book, there were several lines and observations that made me chuckle. It was amusing as well as being entertaining, tense and intriguing!

I love the main character, Sam Shephard, as she’s feisty, clever, has a no-nonsense attitude, confidence, good sense of humour and she doesn’t give up easily, even when her boss, Detective Inspector ‘Dickhead’ Johns, is being his usual nasty self and hauling her over the coals for no apparent reason!

Sam’s flatmate, Maggie, is great and it’s a shame she didn’t feature more in this book as the pair have a great rapport. I enjoyed the developments in Sam’s relationship with Paul – they seem to be getting on really well and are much closer now!

Bound has a great sense of place – I loved all the descriptions of Dunedin and the surrounding areas, especially as I visited the city when I was travelling round the South Island of New Zealand over 10 years ago.

I understand that this is the fourth book in a series that was originally written in New Zealand between 2007 and 2011 so I hope that’s not the end and we get to meet Sam Shephard again soon! I do have the first two books, Overkill and The Ringmaster, still to read so I’ll definitely be getting round to them very soon!

Buy the book

Bound by Vanda Symon can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in paperback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

Vanda Symon is a crime writer, TV presenter and radio host from Dunedin, New Zealand, and the chair of the Otago Southland branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors. The Sam Shephard series has climbed to number one on the New Zealand bestseller list, and also been shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award for best crime novel. She currently lives in Dunedin, with her husband and two sons.

Twitter: @vandasymon
Facebook: @vandasymonauthor
Instagram: @vandasymon
Website: http://www.vandasymon.com

Blog tour

Thanks to Orenda Books and Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for my digital copy of Bound and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.