I am excited to share my review today as part of the Virtual Book Tour hosted by Zooloo’s Book Tours which runs 30 October to 13 November 2025.
Many thanks to Zooloo’s Book Tours for inviting me to be part of this book tour and for offering a digital copy to read and review.
Follow along with the Schedule and hear what other reviewers have to say about this one!
As always, this review reflects my honest thoughts.
About the book
Once you cross the wrong lines, there’s no turning back.For DS Liam Kilshaw, a former marine who almost died on a mission gone wrong, returning to the sea was meant to help combat his PTSD. But when he’s called out with the lifeboat crew off the rugged Cornish coast at night, the dark danger of the waves comes crashing back. The body of a young man is floating in the water, and the zip-tie marks on his wrists show this is no tragic drowning—it’s murder.
It’s not the first suspicious death to shock the tight-knit community: the identical discovery of a young woman with connections to a county lines drugs gang leads Kilshaw to suspect the killings must be linked. But as the brooding Cornish coast and whispered local rumours fold darkly around him, he starts to feel he can’t trust the water or anyone in town.
As the bodies keep coming, he must confront a sinister gangland underworld as well as his own demons—before tragedy strikes even closer to home.
The Lines by Matt Brolly
Published 15 October 2025 by Thomas & Mercer
You can find the book on Amazon and Goodreads
About the Author
Matt Brolly is the Amazon number one, and Wall Street Journal, bestselling author of the DI Blackwell novels set in Weston-super-Mare, as well as the DCI Lambert crime novels, the acclaimed near future crime novel, Zero, and the US thrillers, The Controller, The Railroad, and The Running Girls. His books have sold over one million copies in 16 countries.
Matt lives in London with his wife, their two children, a dog called Herbie, and a cat called W.G Snuffy Walden.
Matt’s website can be found at mattbrolly.com
You can follow Matt on social media Facebook, Instagram and X
My Review
Every so often I pick up a crime thriller that reminds me why I love this genre so much — the atmosphere, the tension, the emotional pull — and The Lines delivered all of that in the best possible way. From the opening scenes, there’s a darkness lingering beneath the surface, the kind that slowly tightens around you until you realise you’re completely hooked.
DS Liam Kilshaw is the heart of this story, and I connected with him far more deeply than I expected to. He’s tough when he needs to be, but there’s a fragility to him as well — the weight of old trauma that he’s still trying to outrun. Watching him navigate the cold Cornish waters while battling the memories they drag back up was genuinely powerful. I felt every moment of unease, every flash of doubt, and every small victory as he pushed through.
The setting is honestly one of my favourite parts. The Cornish coast feels wild and unpredictable, almost a character in its own right. Those scenes at night, with the waves crashing and the wind cutting through everything… I could picture it so clearly that it gave me goosebumps. There’s something haunting about a community so tightly bound by the sea, yet hiding so many dangerous secrets.
The investigation is tense, layered, and cleverly structured, but never confusing. What I really appreciated is that nothing felt thrown in for drama. Every piece of information mattered. Every discovery had weight. I found myself trying to piece things together alongside Kilshaw, and just when I thought I’d cracked it, the next chapter would nudge me in a different direction.
The story also touches on some tough themes — exploitation, fear, the reach of county lines — and it does so in a sensitive, grounded way. You really get a sense of how these things ripple through small communities, how people try to protect each other even when they can’t quite bring themselves to speak the truth out loud.
By the end, I wasn’t just invested in the case; I was invested in Kilshaw himself. It’s been a while since I finished a first-in-series and immediately felt excited to follow a character into whatever comes next, but that’s exactly how I felt here. Matt Brolly has created something gripping, atmospheric, and surprisingly emotional — the perfect combination.
A tense, heartfelt, and beautifully crafted start to a new series.
I absolutely loved it.
This review may also appear on my social media and selected book platforms. All links are correct at the time of posting.
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