My Review of Feather and Claw by Susan Handley

Feather and Claw by Susan Handley is not the first outing of Cat McKenzie but works perfectly well as a stand alone novel. I enjoyed the complex character of Cat, desperately in need of a break who finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation in Cyprus. The tension between Cat and her friend Amy is particularly well written and authentic; we all have different types of friends and Cat discovers that Amy is not one of those friends that you go on holiday with more the sort you have an occasional night out with. Cat spends a lot of the novel exhibiting palpable frustration with Amy's behaviour and also in being a detective excluding from the case: a suspicious death that happens right in front of her. 

Cat's natural instincts are thwarted by the Cypriot police and her boss back home as she finds herself disbelieved  and sidelined. This frustration wonderfully contrasts with the beauty of Cyprus with its glorious sunshine and idyllic landscape. In turn, Handley expertly uses the appearance of Cyprus as the antithesis of its unpalatable hidden underbelly of bird trapping to furnish a local delicacy of ambelopoulia.

Feather and Claw is never what you expect and Handley is always incorpporating different subplots to keep the reader entertained and engrossed to the end. I'm already looking forward to the next Cat McKenzie adventure although somehow I suspect it won't be in Cyprus.

Thanks to Emma @damppebbles for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.