It seemed like a simple plan – your partner distracts a businessman at a urinal while you steal his briefcase. Perfect. Except for when the first time you try it, you manage to pick on a local mob boss, and the briefcase contains no money – just a pair of severed hands.

When the briefcase finds its way to Detective Sergeant Declan Miller – still hunting for the killer of his wife – he sees a way to gain leverage over Wayne Cutler, the local gang boss who might have information that he wants. But there are people who are desperate to get their hands on that briefcase – people who are far more ruthless than Miller might expect.

You will recall how much I loved The Last Dance, the first DS Miller book. I thought it was fantastic, a good mystery, genuinely funny and a beautiful love story (admittedly where one of the couple is dead). It’s been a few days since I finished this one, the sequel to it, and it’s a difficult review to write. Because this book is just… pretty good.

The problem is that I’m automatically going to compare it to The Last Dance, and you can’t bottle lightning twice. That was one of the best books that I’ve read in ages. This is a great read, it really is, but there are two comparisons where I felt it fell a little short.

First of all, this has far more of a thriller structure than a mystery. Yes, there is a mystery element in it, but the majority of the story concerns a very entertaining hitman’s attempts to find the briefcase. There’s also an excellent subplot that I won’t mention (as it coalesces when you don’t expect it to), but there isn’t a whodunnit here in the main story. It’s personal preference but after the first book, I was hoping for another such mystery. It’s a really good thriller, mind you…

The other part is probably more important to me, and that’s all about love. I found Declan’s grief, and the way he expressed and dealt with it in the first book rather magical. I’m an old romantic at heat, and these bits were the highlight of the book. Well, those and Declan’s sense of humour. But those bits seemed less frequent here, and I missed them.

I did really enjoy this book, it’s entertaining, funny and thrilling. You’ll almost certainly enjoy it. But I did feel it suffered from second book syndrome. Given the events at the end, though, I’m still looking forward to any further adventures of DS Miller.