Translated by Rachel Ward
A new Chastity Riley book is always welcome. She is the most brilliant character – a police prosecutor in Hamburg. She is smart, sassy as they come, earthy and no-nonsense, but prone to dodgy romances, and she also gets far too involved in her cases for a prosecutor really. She works with a team of police officers who we’ve got to know over two series – the original Chastity Riley books, and the Chastity Reloaded series, which takes us back to her early days in the job. I’ve previously read and really enjoyed Hotel Cartagena and River Clyde, 4th and 5th in the first series, and The Acapulco, the 1st of the ‘Chastity Reloaded’ books.
Sharks is the third book in the Chastity Reloaded series,, and happily stands alone if you haven’t read the others.
It begins, of course, with a murder. In Hamburg’s ‘problem area’, an American couple are found murdered in an apartment in a derelict house. There are many questions – about the couple, about the owners of the house, about the planners who want to gentrify the area for a start.
Chastity is lunching with Calabretta and the new member of their team, who has just joined them, Inceman.
He pulls up his dark-grey coat and pushes up the sleeves of his blue jumper. His forearms are flawless, chiselled, like a scupture from the wrist to the elbow. When he clocks that I’m staring at his arms, he strokes back his hair and looks at me like he wants to gnaw on me.
I cough.
Our beer arrives.
We drink.
We find out how they get on later, but he offers fresh eyes on the case.
You may have noticed that Chastity coughs in the above quotation. Throughout this novel she is suffering from a severe chest infection, coughing all the time, very reluctant indeed to give up smoking, even just until she’s better. She soldiers on defiantly despite best efforts from best friend Carla, on-off boyfriend and neighbout Klatsche, colleagues too, to take time off to recover. That’s Chastity for you!
But the case develops complications as they discover a web of corruption extending from developers to investors to dodgy officials, sharks every one of them. Also a former colleague, Faller, now working as a private detective keeps getting in the way. However, he could be useful…
As always Chastity gives her all to the case, although she makes time to go see her beloved Sankt Pauli soccer team with Carla, who tells her she’s pregnant, and needs Chastity to go with her to the clinic.
So we have Buchholz’s usual mix of the police and the personal, all as narrated by Chastity. She’s as witty, waspish and snarky as ever, but always lovable underneath. Written in Buchholz’s trademark Chastity narrating style of short chapters, and lots of short sentences punctuating the longer phrases as in the quote above. The translation by Rachel Ward is super as always, capturing all of Chastity’s mind and emotion perfectly.
I read this in one session, like all the Chastity books, it’s a propulsive page-turner with a singular lead character. You’ll want to read them all.
Source: Review copy – thank you. Orenda paperback 2026, 210 pages. BUY at Waterstones via my affiliate link.
Orenda is an indie publisher, and February is Read Indies month, hosted by Karen
