I first bumped (bookwise!) into Robert Bryndza about six years ago when I read the first Erika Foster. I enjoyed it and knew he and I would meet again! I think I waited a little too long, because this book reminded me what a terrific author he is. You know when you read a good book and think, wow, I've got to read ALL his/her books? Mr B is that author!

Erika is seven adventures in now and despite not having read five of them, at no point did I feel at sea with any missing information. This was perfectly standalone. A tense, frustrating (for Erika) and difficult investigation following the murder of two young girls keeps you engaged and frantically turning the pages. At no point did I guess who did it. I had a stab or two, certainly, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

The book fully deserves the five stars I've given it for plot, characters and writing, but if I could give six I would, the extra being for Bryndza humbly thanking his readers in his acknowledgements. Few authors do, but those that give us a nod have a special place in my TBR. It's a two-way thing: an author writes for a reader's pleasure and for that, I'm very grateful and, if I'm honest in awe. But an author doesn't really have a book without his or her readers, so thank you, Mr B, for your well-received thanks and appreciation.

I wasted no time and am already twenty-five percent into Bryndza's latest Kate Marshall. No six-year wait this time! ( )

Ik word altijd zo blij met een boek van Robert Bryndza. En deze is daarop geen uitzondering. Heel veel personages, die allemaal in aanmerking komen als dader. Ik werd van het ene op het andere idee gebracht. Maar het einde zag ik totaal niet aankomen. Met veel vaart geschreven. Heerlijk boek! ( )

Fatal Witness by Robert Bryndza is the seventh instalment in the Detective Erika Foster series but it reads well as a stand-alone. This is such a tightly written novel that I now will be looking to read all the preceding books. This is a murder mystery in its highest form. The police procedural is so well-detailed that the reader feels like they are observing the action in person. The mystery begins with a vicious murder, before the victim is introduced to the reader. It shocks and captures the attention. Detective Erika Foster is immediately involved in the case because, while walking in her new neighborhood, she hears a scream which brings her to the murder site. The victim, believed to be Vicky Clarke, is a true crime podcaster who has been investigating a serial predator who preyed on students years ago. All the evidence she had painstakingly uncovered is missing. This leaves Erika and her team without much to go on. This mystery has an original and fascinating plot. The characters, whether good or criminal, are shown in great detail and the reader will have no clue who the criminal is. The tension keeps the pages turning and the author takes his time with the conclusion. This is a superior novel to be enjoyed by anyone who enjoys a plausible mystery. Highly recommended. Thank you to Raven Street Publishing, NetGalley and the author for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Author Robert Bryndza's popular fictional detective, Erika Foster, must solve another mystifying case and put a murderer behind bars. As Fatal Witness opens, she has just purchased and moved into a sprawling, dilapidated Victorian house in the Blackheath area of London. A heath is a patch of semi-wild ground, she explains to her sister, Lenka, and the area was used as a burial pit during the Black Death plague. Hence the name. But now it's an up-and-coming, walkable neighborhood and the house has a view that will never be obstructed, thanks to the area’s sad history. Neither the furnace nor most of the home's multiple fireplaces work, and Erika hasn't gotten around to purchasing needed furniture -- including a bed -- so she winds up sleeping in the bedroom with the single working fireplace on an air mattress (that quickly pops) with the cat who immediately adopts her that she christens “George.” Erika is beginning to create a future for herself after mourning her husband, Mark, for the four long years since he died during a botched drug raid, along with five other colleagues. After having some dinner, Erika is walking home when she hears a woman scream and immediately responds to the apartment building from which the sound originated.

She discovers Tess Clarke, who has happened upon the body of her sister, Vicky. Tess and her husband operate a restaurant, Goose, in a tonier section of London known as "the village." When Vicky did not show up for work there, Tess went looking for her sister. Erika finds a disturbingly gruesome murder scene showing evidence of a fierce struggle in an apartment building populated by eclectic tenants, including the two Bulgarian sisters, Maria and Sophie Ivanova, who are studying medicine, and Charles Wakefield, the brother of Julian Wakefield, Assistant Commissioner of Police. Wakefield is a decidedly odd chap whose apartment appears to be stuck in a time warp with no indication that its occupant leads a twenty-first century life. In fact, his brother owns the apartment in which he lives and all associated bills are in Julian's name. Charles does not have a driver's license, telephone, computer, or television, and his passport expired in 2012. It is as though, from a bureaucratic viewpoint, he disappeared a decade ago. When additional officers and the forensic team descend upon the crime scene, Wakefield's bizarre behavior escalates to his assault upon a paramedic . . . and good cause to arrest him.

Erika considers Wakefield a suspect, especially after learning that Vicky confided in Tess about his "creepy" persona and habits, which included listening outside her apartment door. But aside from his brother, Wakefield has another protector. The owner of the apartment building, Henrietta Boulderstone, insists that he joins her in her penthouse apartment each evening for a drink, thereby providing him an alibi and establishing that he could not have killed Vicky within the time parameters the evidence establishes. Erika is not convinced, especially when detectives find a threatening note hidden in a drawer, and is intent upon finding out who sent that note to Wakefield and why in order to determine if it links him to Vicky’s murder.

Vicky was an aspiring actress who had recently converted her bedroom into a recording studio. She was hoping to narrate audiobooks and had recently launched a podcast, calling herself "V.A. Clarke, True Crime Detective." Oddly, no notebooks or other documentation pertaining to her research is found in her apartment. Also, Vicky failed to upload the latest episode of the podcast. But where is that recording? Was Vicky's killing motivated by something she revealed -- or was about to reveal -- in the podcast?

Bryndza introduces Cilla Stone, a flamboyant, retired drama teacher in her sixties, residing in Scotland. She, along with Colin McCabe, was one of Vicky's teachers at Goldsmith's Drama Academy, and the two women remained close. Charles was the school's caretaker from 2007 to 2012. Over the years, several female students have reported being assaulted by intruders in their on-campus housing, but no arrest has been made. And college officials attempt to stonewall efforts to obtain information about those crimes, including details about the university’s investigations – if any – completed after the students’ complaints were tendered. Is there a connection to the murder Erika is investigating back in London?

Of course there is, and Bryndza's story is clever, intricately-constructed, and contemporary. Once again, he focuses on Erika's fierce commitment to her career and ensuring that justice is meted out. She is assisted by her loyal colleagues, Detective Inspectors Peterson (with whom she is no longer romantically involved) and Moss, and Isaac Strong, the Forensic Pathologist who calls himself her GBFc9Gay Best Friend0. Erika deftly navigates bureaucratic and politic roadblocks erected by Wakefield, Commander Paul Marsh, and Superintendent Melanie Hudson that threaten to impede her investigation, sometimes risking her career in the name of solving crime. Her personal life always takes a backseat to her professional endeavors, as demonstrated by her unwillingness to take time away from her search for the killer to shop for a bed and be at her new home to take delivery of it. And although she still misses Mark, she views her purchase of a new home, "for all its faults," as a "fresh start. I finally feel like I'm moving on . . ." she tells Lenka. When she finally manages to be at home when her new furniture arrives, it is delivered by Igor Mak, her first boyfriend with whom she lost touch after she moved from Slovakia to the United Kingdom when she was just eighteen years old. Bryndza delivers a sweet, hopeful reunion that causes Erika to feel "a little flutter of excitement" strong enough to make her forget all about the case she is working on.

Bryndza never disappoints, again weaving an enthralling tale about an educational institution that turned a deaf ear to female students' complaints about safety concerns in campus residences. He also explores familial duties, responsibilities, and expectations, and the sometimes-steep price of pursuing and revealing truth. He is a master at employing misdirection, and injects shocking plot twists and stunning revelations -- as well as a few red herrings -- at expertly-timed junctures that propel the story forward. The pace never lags, gradually accelerating as Bryndza places Erika in extreme danger from a crazed and menacing criminal who will use any means necessary to prevent his or her crimes being expose and evade apprehension. Will Erika survive to continue renovating her new home, possibly exploring a renewed relationship with an old flame as she does so, and solve future crimes? Finding out is, as always, highly absorbing and entertaining.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book. ( )

Fatal Witness by Robert Bryndza
Detective Erika Foster #7

This is the third of seven books in the series that I have read, and it is easily read without having read the others. The story is a straightforward police procedural serial killer murder mystery starring Detective Erika Foster and her team. Erika has been a widow for four years, has purchased a fixer-upper to live in, is roughing it in her house, and has mostly work-related friends and family to interact with. She is work-focused and seems a bit of a loner.

The book’s prologue begins with a gruesome graphic murder that Erika comes across on her way home one evening. The team arrives, she talks to the victim’s sister, and then Erika and her team are assigned the case to follow up on. There are a number of people to get alibis from, some sketchy people that might or might not be red herrings, and a podcast topic that could be important to the case…if they can figure out what it is about and who the focus of the story is supposed to be.

There are hints about various team members and how they and their families as well as a few updates about Erika, her family, and her best friend. There is a new man that appears that could become a romantic partner for Erika – wouldn’t mind finding out if Igor is in the next book as a friend or as more and do hope Georgie the cat appears again, too.

As for the murder mystery and police procedural aspects – they were fine, but they did not grip me as the previous books I have read did. I didn’t feel as connected to Erika and her team or to the murders as I would have liked to have been but did enjoy catching up with them and would read another book in the series when it is finished.

Thank you to NetGalley and Raven Street Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

3-4 Stars ( )