The Secret was the second book written by Katerina Diamond that I’ve read and is the second in the series of books featuring DS Imogen Grey. Having read The Teacher, the first book in the series, I was looking forward to being reunited with DS Imogen Grey within The Secret. Although it took me far longer than planned to get started on it, I have to say that I found it to be a thoroughly engaging and compelling read that really did have me on the edge of my seat.
At the start of the book we are introduced to Bridget, an undercover police officer who is playing the part of a prostitute in what can only be described as a brothel. One evening, after two men break into her apartment whilst she is upstairs and murder two of the girls she works with and one client, Bridget is forced to go on the run. However after passing out whilst on the run, Bridget wakes up to find herself in a locked basement room where she is held hostage and visited regularly by a captor who she doesn’t know. Assigned the task of finding out what happened to Bridget is DS Imogen Grey and her colleague DS Adrian Miles. As the investigation gets under way Imogen can’t help but feel that this case is connected to a past case she was working on and the past is really not a place that she wants to revisit.
The Secret is a novel that is told from the viewpoint of multiple characters - Imogen, Bridget, Adrian and a boy who is clearly very disturbed. Each of these characters had a very distinctive voice and I thought that Katerina had done a fabulous job at allowing us to get to know each of them with some fantastic character development throughout. Although not essential to have read the first book in the series, it’s something that I would recommend to appreciate the characters and the events that have happened to them previously that The Secret sometimes refers to.
The first book in the series, The Teacher, contained lots of gory and graphic moments and this was something that I struggled with. I have to say that I thought there were far fewer of these scenes within The Secret and this was something that I personally appreciated very much. Another thing I loved about this book was the way in which it was truly unpredictable from beginning to end, with so many twists and turns that you felt you were discovering the leads at the exact same time as the police. In fact the only negative for me was that it jumped around between the past and present quite a lot, sometimes making it quite difficult to keep track of what had happened previously.
With this now being the second book by Katerina that I have read, I can honestly say that I feel she is an author who will continue to deliver great things as an author. I’ve really enjoyed follwing DS Imogen Grey on her investigations to date, and feel that I am now in a good position to pick up the third book in the series - The Angel - that has recently been published. I’m very much looking forward to seeing where life will take Imogen to next!
