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Steel City #4
Spider's Web
1993. A trip to the cinema turns into a nightmare for Anna and her little sister Jessica when two men throw thirteen-year-old Jessica into the back of a van and speed away. The years tick by... Tick, tick... The police fail to find Jessica and her name fades from the public consciousness... Tick, tick... But every time Anna closes her eyes she's back in that terrible moment, lurching towards Jessica, grabbing for her. So close. So agonisingly close... Tick, tick... Now in her thirties, Anna has no career, no relationship, no children. She's consumed by one purpose – finding Jessica, dead or alive. DI Jim Monahan has a little black book with forty-two names in it. Jim's determined to put every one of those names behind bars, but his investigation is going nowhere fast. Then a twenty-year-old clue brings Jim and Anna together in search of a shadowy figure known as Spider. Who is Spider? Where is Spider? Does Spider have the answers they want? The only thing Jim and Anna know is that the victims Spider entices into his web have a habit of ending up missing or dead. Praise for Ben 'Fast-moving action and lots of twists ' The Times . 'One of the most powerful, disturbing, but brilliantly written books I've ever had the privilege to read' Breakaway Reviewers . ' Breath-taking . This really is a fantastic crime thriller' Atticus Finch, Top 500 Amazon reviewer . 'Fast-paced, thoroughly researched, and heart-breaking ' CrimeSquad .
361 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 2, 2015
39 people are currently reading
154 people want to read
About the author
Ben Cheetham
46 books257 followersBen Cheetham is an award-winning writer and Pushcart Prize nominee. His writing spans the genres, from horror and sci-fi to literary fiction, but he has a passion for dark, gritty crime fiction. His short stories have been published in Swill Magazine, The Fiction Desk, Deadcore (Comet Press), The London Magazine, The Willisden Herald New Short Stories 3, The Grist Anthology of New Writing, Dream Catcher, Staple, Fast Forward: A Collection of Flash Fiction, Voice From The Planet (Harvard Square Editions), The Momaya Annual Review, Transmission, The Chaffey Review, and numerous other magazines.
Ben lives in Sheffield, UK, where - when he's not chasing around after his two-year old son - he spends most of his time locked away in his study racking his brain for the next paragraph, the next sentence, the next word.
Ben lives in Sheffield, UK, where - when he's not chasing around after his two-year old son - he spends most of his time locked away in his study racking his brain for the next paragraph, the next sentence, the next word.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 7, 2015
Spider’s Web – Dancing With The Devil
Ben Cheetham returns with his fourth in his Steel City Thrillers which once again is a fast paced crime thriller that races around Yorkshire, the Moors and beyond. Once again the jaded Detective Chief Inspector Jim Monahan returns to lead the case, with grit and determination, and someone who is restricted by those ranked above him.
Spider’s Web picks up where Justice of The Damned left off on the trail of a paedophile gang and in particular who seems to be the procurer of the victims, Spider. The people he supplies are well respected, well resourced people who for over twenty years, in spite of the Police have managed to keep their personal proclivities out of the public eye and more importantly out of court.
At the same time prostitutes have gone missing in Sheffield for thirty years, never to be seen again and rumours abound of a serial killer. DCI Jim Monahan has a small team that investigates the missing with reluctant witness it at times seems he is running through mud. He has a little black book of one of the convicted with names of other people that need to be sent to prison but with no evidence, no witnesses he has nowhere to go and the offenders know it.
Anna Young remembers the day well, when her younger sister, Jessica is grabbed off the street and thrown in to the back of a dark van in 1993. Anna relives that day every day of her life and has sworn to find out the truth, and through a blog tells the public what the Police and press cannot, and this gets her in to various amounts of trouble. She does not care, on that day twenty years before her family died, eventually killing her father ten years ago, she is determined to find the truth and her sister.
Monahan knows his investigations are going nowhere fast and decides to give Anna a little help and point her in the right direction, and the key to their investigations is to find a former children homes worker who seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. All they know is the kids knew him as Spider due to the spider’s web tattoo on his body, and that he was known to abuse and procure children for the abusers but had never been charged, due to lack of evidence.
As the investigation picks up speed it means Anna and Monahan have to trust each other and know they need each other to crack the case. At the same time it throws up something neither expected but welcomed and brought a much more needed urgency to find Spider. What they need to do is understand Paganism and more importantly Wicca taken to the extreme. As the pace picks up the more lives depend on them getting the evidence to close the case finally.
Yet again Ben Cheetham through his prose paints a picture of despair and hope well at the same time making all the characters seem human. There is even a slight reflection to the current investigations of the South Yorkshire Police in to current celebrity sex rings. Some of the imagery that Cheetham uses is breath taking and must have taken a lot of research to use popular areas so well known to locals and give them a fresh look.
Using both Monahan and Anna Jones as his foil, the only person he can really trust, is an interesting addition in this book. The challenges they both overcome and the danger it puts them in. This really is a fantastic crime thriller full of pace and characters to remember.
Ben Cheetham returns with his fourth in his Steel City Thrillers which once again is a fast paced crime thriller that races around Yorkshire, the Moors and beyond. Once again the jaded Detective Chief Inspector Jim Monahan returns to lead the case, with grit and determination, and someone who is restricted by those ranked above him.
Spider’s Web picks up where Justice of The Damned left off on the trail of a paedophile gang and in particular who seems to be the procurer of the victims, Spider. The people he supplies are well respected, well resourced people who for over twenty years, in spite of the Police have managed to keep their personal proclivities out of the public eye and more importantly out of court.
At the same time prostitutes have gone missing in Sheffield for thirty years, never to be seen again and rumours abound of a serial killer. DCI Jim Monahan has a small team that investigates the missing with reluctant witness it at times seems he is running through mud. He has a little black book of one of the convicted with names of other people that need to be sent to prison but with no evidence, no witnesses he has nowhere to go and the offenders know it.
Anna Young remembers the day well, when her younger sister, Jessica is grabbed off the street and thrown in to the back of a dark van in 1993. Anna relives that day every day of her life and has sworn to find out the truth, and through a blog tells the public what the Police and press cannot, and this gets her in to various amounts of trouble. She does not care, on that day twenty years before her family died, eventually killing her father ten years ago, she is determined to find the truth and her sister.
Monahan knows his investigations are going nowhere fast and decides to give Anna a little help and point her in the right direction, and the key to their investigations is to find a former children homes worker who seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. All they know is the kids knew him as Spider due to the spider’s web tattoo on his body, and that he was known to abuse and procure children for the abusers but had never been charged, due to lack of evidence.
As the investigation picks up speed it means Anna and Monahan have to trust each other and know they need each other to crack the case. At the same time it throws up something neither expected but welcomed and brought a much more needed urgency to find Spider. What they need to do is understand Paganism and more importantly Wicca taken to the extreme. As the pace picks up the more lives depend on them getting the evidence to close the case finally.
Yet again Ben Cheetham through his prose paints a picture of despair and hope well at the same time making all the characters seem human. There is even a slight reflection to the current investigations of the South Yorkshire Police in to current celebrity sex rings. Some of the imagery that Cheetham uses is breath taking and must have taken a lot of research to use popular areas so well known to locals and give them a fresh look.
Using both Monahan and Anna Jones as his foil, the only person he can really trust, is an interesting addition in this book. The challenges they both overcome and the danger it puts them in. This really is a fantastic crime thriller full of pace and characters to remember.
January 5, 2020
Audio version of this book 📚- EXCELLENT another cracking read in what’s been a brilliant series. Full of twists and turns highly recommend
January 23, 2016
A DARK STORY EXPOSING A PAEDOPHILE RING. A MUST READ!
1993: Anna Young (a real tomboy) is a couple of years older than her very “girly” sister Jessica. She feels that she is her “protector”. While out one afternoon, Jessica is abducted by two men in a white van, Anna puts up a fight to save her but the men overpower her and leave her running after the van screaming for all she’s worth.
PRESENT DAY: Detective Inspector Jim Monahan is desperately trying to destroy a paedophile ring. A book listing the names of all those involved has come to light, but trying to link all the suspects is proving to be too difficult using conventional police methods. Anna Young is still looking for Jessica. She’s never given up the search. Jim Monahan catches Anna taking photographs of one of the suspects as he’s leaving the police station, following yet another fruitless interview with DI Monahan and his partner, Inspector Reece Geary, Jim decides to throw conventional methods out of the window and gets Anna to help him with his enquiries.
This is one of the most powerful, disturbing, but brilliantly written books I’ve ever had the privilege to read. It’s much more than the story of Anna trying to find her sister. More than Jim Monahan trying to break up this ring involving people with “clout” who will do anything to stop the full story from ever emerging of their depravity.
What Ben Cheetham has also manage to show through this story is how paedophile rings can often be linked to Satanism and satanic rituals. To the general public these are just something one hears about, through nothing more than whispers, but they do exist and those involved in the practice are often “pillars of society”.
I hope that my review is sufficient to arouse your curiosity enough to buy this book and read how Ben Cheetham has managed to weave a story around facts that unfortunately are true and do happen. As I write this – maybe there’s a child being groomed into one of these rings. The more we know about them and how they operate, the sooner they can be destroyed for good.
Treebeard
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review
1993: Anna Young (a real tomboy) is a couple of years older than her very “girly” sister Jessica. She feels that she is her “protector”. While out one afternoon, Jessica is abducted by two men in a white van, Anna puts up a fight to save her but the men overpower her and leave her running after the van screaming for all she’s worth.
PRESENT DAY: Detective Inspector Jim Monahan is desperately trying to destroy a paedophile ring. A book listing the names of all those involved has come to light, but trying to link all the suspects is proving to be too difficult using conventional police methods. Anna Young is still looking for Jessica. She’s never given up the search. Jim Monahan catches Anna taking photographs of one of the suspects as he’s leaving the police station, following yet another fruitless interview with DI Monahan and his partner, Inspector Reece Geary, Jim decides to throw conventional methods out of the window and gets Anna to help him with his enquiries.
This is one of the most powerful, disturbing, but brilliantly written books I’ve ever had the privilege to read. It’s much more than the story of Anna trying to find her sister. More than Jim Monahan trying to break up this ring involving people with “clout” who will do anything to stop the full story from ever emerging of their depravity.
What Ben Cheetham has also manage to show through this story is how paedophile rings can often be linked to Satanism and satanic rituals. To the general public these are just something one hears about, through nothing more than whispers, but they do exist and those involved in the practice are often “pillars of society”.
I hope that my review is sufficient to arouse your curiosity enough to buy this book and read how Ben Cheetham has managed to weave a story around facts that unfortunately are true and do happen. As I write this – maybe there’s a child being groomed into one of these rings. The more we know about them and how they operate, the sooner they can be destroyed for good.
Treebeard
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review
February 11, 2022
All I can say is if you think you know what's going to happen next , your so wrong . So many twists and turns for Emily , and Anna . Jim is the long suffering hero , what a man he is . Loved every second of this book . My only regret is finishing it . A MUST read .
June 10, 2016
fast paced and a great book in the series.
September 4, 2022
I really do hope it cannot work like this in the real life, but I fear it to certain can and does... And it really scares me, just imaging it. I could nearly feel the desperation of Anna and the inspector. And I could imagine why he did, what he did, although he risked his work.
The story is catching and you really keep wondering, where Anna's sister is, and yet the answer is never fully answered... And also the justice is served bit in strange way... The end is not fully tied together, but I still liked the book.
The story is catching and you really keep wondering, where Anna's sister is, and yet the answer is never fully answered... And also the justice is served bit in strange way... The end is not fully tied together, but I still liked the book.
December 26, 2020
A great series! It kept me on edge! I would love to read more books in this 'Missing Ones Trilogy' series by Ben Cheetham! Would truly recommend this series for everyone to read! DI Jim Monahan is one of the best main characters! Really sad that his wife got murdered by a child kidnapper and rapist!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 23, 2016
Ok but didn't reliase it was part of a series so had to second guess many of the characters mentioned as it didn't provide much of a background story. Easy to read with not much of a twist but still intriguing enough.
August 31, 2024
Reading all four books in a row books 2-3 &4 were a great running collection. Spiders web kept me gripped from start to finish, You felt for all the characters in this book especially poor Jim. This book was probably one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.
November 24, 2017
A good fast paced thrillee
March 24, 2018
Another good read in this series.
October 4, 2019
Love the series. Fast paced can’t wait for more
October 8, 2019
I thought it started a bit slow but it soon got better with a couple of good twists.
March 28, 2020
Brilliant book
Couldn't put this book down , would highly recommend Ben Chatham is a brilliant author can't wait to read another one of he's books
Couldn't put this book down , would highly recommend Ben Chatham is a brilliant author can't wait to read another one of he's books
August 18, 2022
Outstanding series of crime novels
September 13, 2025
Excellent conclusion of the series.. throughly enjoyable and gripping.
January 5, 2017
The 4th book in the series of Steel City Thrillers is just as readable as the previous 3. As Sheffield is my city the fact I know many of the places that are referenced enhances the story further.
If you want a steady crime/thriller type book that is easy to read and with a great plot line then this is a great book for you.
I've reached the point now that I look for these books coming out and can't wait for the next one.
You won't be disappointed by any of these books by a new(ish) author.
If you want a steady crime/thriller type book that is easy to read and with a great plot line then this is a great book for you.
I've reached the point now that I look for these books coming out and can't wait for the next one.
You won't be disappointed by any of these books by a new(ish) author.
September 1, 2015
A weary detective provocatively publishes suspected VIP paedophile gang names, assisted by a young woman whose sister the gang kidnapped. Earthy.
September 17, 2015
Fast paced and enjoyable just like the previous books in the series.
November 2, 2015
Such a gripping book, had me on the edge of my seat.
January 13, 2017
A moving thriller dealing with organised child abuse and corruption.
September 7, 2022
Brings the series to a satisfying conclusion. Really enjoyed all 4 books.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews