Ellie Parker was an internet celebrity, constantly livestreaming her random actos of kindness, so when she was betrayed by her fiancé and her best friend, the whole world (or at least the portion that follows her) saw it. And when her fiancé and her best friend are found poisoned, she finds her world crashing down as first someone tries to kill her, and then, more successfully, frame her for the murders.

Only ex-con man and current trial lawyer Eddie Flynn can help her, but he is distracted by the trouble that his ex-wife and her husband find themselves in. But when the killer discovers this, he sees the ideal way to take Flynn out of the picture for good – by targeting his family…

There are many things that I forget these days, but the one that I get reminded of once a year is that I’ve not read the first three Eddie Flynn thrillers. The reason that this bothers me is that the Eddie Flynn series is one of my favourite set of thrillers and I haven’t read all of them. I’ve read them all since Thirteen, and while I’ve enjoyed them all, this one is one of the best of the lot.

There’s two reasons – first of all the characters. They’ve all developed over the course of the series and each gets there own little ongoing subplot that never gets in the way of the main narrative but enhances the quiet parts. There’s also the non-series characters, most notably here being the character of Logan who we know from the start is the killer. He’s no two dimensional serial killer though, and the insights we see into how and why he operates, including what made him into who he is, add a whole extra layer to the story.

The second reason is that the plot never stops moving. With some thrillers, you can see where they’re going but Cavanagh is on top-form here with twists and turns and genuine surprises. The method that Eddie uses to win his cases is usually the big reveal, but here there’s loads more things that caught me out. Some thrillers leave their surprises to the end, but here, it’s like there’s one every chapter.

An absolutely first-rate page-turner of a thriller. One of the best of the series.

Two Kinds Of Stranger is out on 31^st July – many thanks for the review e-copy from NetGalley.