Conspiracy of Blood by Katarzyna Bonda

Author: Katarzyna Bonda 

Title: Conspiracy of Blood

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Published: 2015

Pages: 576

Genre: Crime Thriller 

     Sasza decides to return to the police, but first, she must ensure the safety of her daughter by putting to rest the demons evoked by the terrifying ordeal which led her to leave Poland for seven years in England. No sooner has she begun the process, however, than she is drawn into the deeply disturbing case of a woman who has disappeared from a village - and she is not the first to do so. The roots of the crime seem to reach all the way back to the dark enmities of the second world war.

     I was first introduced to this author by a friend of mine with her book Girl at Midnight. It was a great opening act to this this serise and a book that showed me just what Poland has to offer when it comes to cime fiction. When I finished that one to my delight I discovered that there where at least three more books in this series. But here, of course, lies the rub of the whole thing. We may all complain about waiting for our favorite authors to finally publish the next book in any given series. Now imagine all that plus then waiting for the book to then get translated and finally put into our grubby little hands. It all takes some time which is of course unfourntune for me. And while I realize patience is a virtue it doesn't stop me from wanting to read it as soon as is humanly possible. But here we now are and it was time to devote a good few hours to discover what Sazsa has been up to next. 

     Our hero is now back to doing what she does best for better or worse. She is one of those heroes that you feel the need to support and get firmly behind in whatever danger she has thrown herself headlong into . This is to say that with Sasza it will not be too long before she has found herself in some sort of mortal danger. But fear not my friends for this hero is most definitely a scrappy fighter and one that usualy manages to get out of these tricky situations, Albeit with some new cuts and scraps. When it comes to the suporting cast of this narrative they are many, but all seem to fit together like a brilliant jigsaw puzzel. Bonda is an author who truly does not believe in telling simple little tales and in doing so requires us to get to know each of our players well. But here it is done with a well-held pen and for me, I never felt like I was simply in a constant battle to learn who each of these people where. In each case, it all goes into the service of the story. its like a giant spiders web and where each one crosses we get a new character. But if you were to remove any one of these the web as a whole would fail and we would simply fall through the wholes. 

     The narrative this time around is most defintly rooted into a more rural setting. For those of us who are not polish-born, it gives us another look into this country and a shift in our gaze. It must said however possibley in a brave move she sets it in the very small town she grew up in but Bonda does seem to have pulled it off as there are no stories of her being driven off never to return. Anyway on with the narative. I would say that with Conspiracy of Blood, her story has moved a little more away from a more real-world tale and started to put its feet into those more big-screen tales. This novel sets out to shock the reader be it some of its more unlikable charcters or the more blood splattered pages.  She does however uses both these element to suscfully build the layers of her narative. As we skip about in the history of this town we see this sinister generational corruption seep into every thing that is touched by its dark tentacles. And whilst we do have the main antagonists for me it feels this is much more the message of this novel. How small towns become these little microcosms of life only amplified by their sizes. It can feel at times like the rules that apply to the outside world never quite seem to touch such places.

     Whilst this does feel like a different breed to her previous novel there is still some common threads that bind them together.  And I believe that her overall message still holds true. This is to say that it doesn't matter what walk of life you come from some form of curuptions will inevitably touch you and your life. This book definitely has a bold vision in what it would like to communicate to use all the whilst wrapped up in a solid crime thriller. But it is one that I think Bonda has pulled off well. She has created most definitely a fat book to get through, it is however, one that never seems too slow for me and one that I greatly enjoyed reading.  All I can say is that I hope the next book in this series takes little less time to get here.