This may not be a perfect debut, the author dwells a little too assiduously throughout on Monica's height and the ending is a trifle too fudged. With a boss that is too focused on one suspect, Monica is forced to operate below the radar until it all ends up in a blood soaked thrilling finale that has me avidly anticipating the next book in the series. The police team are not immune from the tragedies and horror that engulf the investigation where it appears there are more victims than the police were ever aware of in the past. Monica and Bach are faced with a case that throws ups ever increasing dangers, with the likes of Owen MacLennan and Don Cameron. Interspersed in the narrative is the watcher, a highly intelligent presence, operating several steps ahead of the police. Monica's ambitious boss, Superintendent Hately foists on her a Dr Hamish Lees, a criminal psychologist, an arrogant man with certainties that Monica is highly doubtful of. Matters escalate when a second body of a another young boy with the same MO is found in a remote location by a loch. With a murder investigation on her hands, Monica knows the police have no resources to devote to finding Nichol, so she breaks procedure by telling him to find Nichol as she gives him his client's laptop. Michael Bach is a guilt ridden social worker, with a traumatic past, desperately worried about about one of his missing clients, 17 year old Nichol Morgan. Her mother who shows a touch too much interest in Monica's cases, looks after Lucy. Leading the police team is DI Monica Kennedy, a rather tall woman, a single mother, with 4 year old daughter, Lucy, whom she barely sees but is constantly in her thoughts.
16 year old Robert Wright disappears from his home, only for his mutilated, tortured body with a stone thrust deep down his throat to be found posed in a remote part of the Highlands.
GR Halliday's debut is a welcome addition to the Scottish Noir crime fiction genre, with its melancholic and morose atmosphere that hangs heavy throughout, set in the Scottish Highlands and Inverness.
0 kommentar(er)
