Black Tag by Simon MayoSynopsis “Your house is on fire. What do you save?
You have seconds to decide. If everything is about to burn, what do you rescue first? When the West End Gallery in London’s fashionable Coal Drops Yard is set alight, the fire service must use the list of paintings lodged with it – a grab list – to snatch the key pieces of art from the flames. But something has been altered. It’s the wrong list. Then the ashes reveal another tragedy: an unidentified dead body. Someone who shouldn’t have been in the gallery. Crusading journalist Famie Madden wants to know who it is and why they were there. Soon it becomes apparent that the ashes are hiding much more than they should be – and that this is much more than a casual act of arson…
Bestselling author and legendary broadcaster Simon Mayo has created a spellbinding contemporary thriller. He weaves a story ripped from today’s newspapers that will take Famie far from the pages of her website into a murderous family saga stretching back over centuries.”

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My Review

I loved this latest thriller from Simon Mayo, it hooked me from the first page and didn’t let go. It also left me with a sizeable book hangover!

This book is a follow up to Knife Edge that I devoured when I read it back in 2020! You could read this as a standalone as there is enough of a hint about what happened in the other book, but it was such a good thriller you should read it first!

Famie is the main character again in this book and she just as good as she was in Knife Edge, a strong female main character, but not ridiculously bad ass. Her colleague Sam, is also back, as is her daughter Charlie.

I’m not going to go into the plot as I’m sure I’ll give away spoilers. If life hadn’t got in the way I would have read this in a day, but it wasn’t to be. There were some great twists, turns and reveals throughout, with very tense final chapters.

Just like the synopsis says at the top of the page, Simon Mayo has written “a story that could be ripped from today’s newspapers” and it really felt like it!

Highly recommended if you enjoy contemporary thrillers.  

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers, for my digital ARC.