**Bound was sent to me in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Random Things Tours and Orenda Books for having me on the tour.**

Summary

“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…”

Review

Bound is a brilliant crime book that throws you from plot twist to plot twist and has you reeling for the majority of the book. To be truthful, I wasn’t aware that this was the fourth book in the series when I requested to join the tour. But I don’t feel that it matters, this book could be a standalone.

Detective Sam Shepherd is steely, strong, and determined. She believes that justice should be given to all regardless of previous crimes people may have committed. When John Henderson is murdered, everyone is sure that the case is closed within weeks of it happening. But as the case begins to unravel, Sam starts to realise that things aren’t as black and white as they seem. Personally, I loved her as a character. Her unwillingness to give up was inspiring. When she finally called our her dickhead boss, DI Johns, I was fist-pumping the air and maybe even felt quite proud of her? It was that moment that solidified her growth for me.

I’ve read many crime, mystery, and psych thrillers in the previous few years so I was convinced I knew who had committed the crime. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The plot twists had me reeling for most of the book. However, it did feel a bit slow-paced for me at the start and didn’t capture my attention for the first few chapters. This left me pleasantly surprised when I ended up really enjoying it after that. The pace picked up and I can’t get over those plot twists!

There was one thing that happens – which I can’t say too much about because I’m not about to spoil it – that just felt a bit unnecessary to me. It could have been left out of the book and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference to the story overall. For me, it felt like a filler to elongate the story more and it became a bit annoying when Sam wouldn’t just come out with it. Sorry, I’m aware this will make no sense if you haven’t read it, but it’s definitely relevant to my rating of this book.

Symon is a wonderful writer, and it really shows in Bound. It flowed well and once the pacing picked up it was a very entertaining read.

For the reasons above, I rate Bound 4/5 stars. The start of the book didn’t capture me enough to be able to go above four stars. However, it was great to read and I’d highly recommend it to fans of crime, or even psych thrillers.