Today, I’m super excited to be bringing you my review for the first book in The Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli, The Mentor. Thanks to ZooLoo’s Book Tours and the author for the gifted copy of the book to take part.
What if someone you love is a serial killer?
DCI Eric Shaw, leading a forensic team at Scotland Yard, together with DI Miriam Leroux from a Murder Investigation Team, is investigating the death of a known offender. Killed by two gunshots: one to his neck, execution style, but preceded by another to his groin, implying a more personal motive.
Shaw’s attention at work is often distracted by a young forensic investigator, Adele Pennington, who is a beautiful woman over two decades his junior. However, his attraction to her is unreciprocated.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the London police, an anonymous blog describes the details of a very similar crime. The author of the blog signs herself as Mina, like one of the victims in a case Shaw investigated many years ago.
Twenty years ago Eric saved her.
Who will save him now?
Meet DCI Eric Shaw . . . and his pupil.
Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli is an author whose books I haven’t come across previously, so I was curious about The Mentor. Especially as the blurb sounded so good! I sat down to read with an open mind and no expectations.
Well, what a fascinating and truly gripping thriller this was. We are introduced to the forensic team at Scotland Yard. Headed by DCI Eric Shaw. His team includes DI Miriam Laroux, his Goddaughter, his deputy Jane Hall, and Adele Peninngton, a forensic officer who Eric is attracted too, but she totally blanks it. They are investigating a serial killer case, but the further they dig, the more it becomes clear that the killer has a link to a case from twenty years ago. A triple murder case that Eric worked. Could it be possible that the killer is really someone Eric would never think would kill?
The book begins with a shocking event from the past. Then moves to present day and it is told from dual perspectives, DCI Eric Shaw and the killers’. I do love a dual perspective. It always adds to the tension, in my opinion. The author builds the picture well. The characters are well drawn, and I was invested in the team after a few chapters, and the case itself was one that had me guessing.
The attraction Eric feels for Adele, who is a younger woman, just gives more depth to the characters for me, too. I thought it made them even more realistic that not everything is black and white.
The Mentor is a fast-paced thriller that is deliciously twisty. Twisty enough that I couldn’t guess what would happen next, and it had a few of those edge of your seat moments. It had me intrigued from the start until I turned the final page of the book. I’m so happy I had the second book to read after I finished this one!
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26017707-the-mentor
Buy Links https://geni.us/Dq5rv
Author Bio
Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli is an Italian science fiction and thriller author.
She has lived in Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy) since 1993, earning a degree in biology and working as a writer, scientific and literary translator, and freelance web copywriter. In the past she also worked as researcher, tutor and professor’s assistant in the field of ecology at ‘Dipartimento di Biologia Animale ed Ecologia’ of the University of Cagliari.
She has written original fiction since 2009.
In 2012-2013 she wrote and published a hard science fiction series set on Mars and titled Deserto rosso. The whole Deserto rosso series was also published as omnibus in December 2013 and hit No. 1 on the Italian Kindle Store in November 2014.
Deserto rosso was published in English, with the title Red Desert, between 2014 and 2015.
It includes the following books: Red Desert – Point of No Return, Red Desert – People of Mars, Red Desert – Invisible Enemy, and Red Desert – Back Home. She also authored three crime thrillers in the Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy – The Mentor (Il mentore, 2014), Syndrome (Sindrome, 2016), and Beyond the Limit (Oltre il limite, 2017) –, an action thriller titled Kindred Intentions (Affinità d’intenti, 2015), five more science fiction novels – L’isola di Gaia (2014), Per caso (2015), Ophir. Codice vivente (2016), Sirius. In caduta libera (2018), and Nave stellare Aurora (2020) – and a non-fiction book titled Self-publishing lab. Il mestiere dell’autoeditore (2020).
Her crime thriller The Mentor was first published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2015 and became an international bestseller hitting No. 1 on the Kindle Store in USA, UK, and Australia in October 2015.
This is a new edition of The Mentor (published in November 2022). The other two books in the trilogy, Syndrome and Beyond the Limit, are expected in 2023.
She’s also a podcaster at FantascientifiCast, an Italian podcast about science fiction, an Italian Representative of Mars Initiative, and a member of the International Thriller Writers organization.
She’s often a guest both in Italy and abroad during book fairs, including Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino (Turin Book Fair) and Frankfurter Buchmesse (Frankfurt Book Fair), local publishing events as well as university conferences, where she gives speeches about self-publishing and genre fiction writing. She has also taught a class on self-publishing at the University of Insubria (Varese, Italy) since 2016.
Her books have been reviewed or recommended by national magazines and newspapers such as Wired Italia, Tom’s Hardware Italia, La Repubblica, Tiscali News and Global Science (magazine of the Italian Space Agency).
As a science fiction and Star Wars fan, she is known in the Italian online community by her nickname, Anakina, which has become the name of her imprint.
Follow her at:
Twitter : https://twitter.com/ladyanakina
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/ladyanakina/
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/RitaCarlaFMonticelli
Website : Anakina.Net
sharonbeyondthebooks.uk 
Thank you so much for taking part in the tour and for sharing your review ❤
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