‘Superb, gritty and realistic’ MEL SHERRATT, million-copy bestseller The hunt is on. And this time, it’s personal… When DS Josie Masters is called out to a house in North Oxford to investigate a serious incident, things take a personal turn. The body is Harry’s – her friend and former colleague. Josie thought Harry lived alone, but evidence suggests he’d had a lodger – a young woman who has … lodger – a young woman who has fled the scene.
And as more killings stun Oxford, the police discover the picture is more complicated than it appeared.
The young woman is on the run, and someone is following her – leaving a stack of bodies in their wake…
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Book source ~ NetGalley
DS Josie Masters of the Thames Valley Police Department is back and this time she’s hunting down a killer who murdered her friend. All in the line of duty of course. She’s not a vigilante.
We’ve got ourselves a serial killer in this one and Josie and her team are trying to track him down before more people die. They can’t figure out his pattern and it’s frustrating. For them. Not for the reader because we know who the killer is. The problem we have is, connecting the dots. And for a long time I couldn’t figure out what the connection was. Then Josie and company started putting the pieces together and the AHA moment came. It’s a great investigation!
I’ve read one other Josie Masters book, the one right before this one. I still haven’t gotten around to reading the 1st one though I intend to at some point. I like the characters and the world. Joise has a bit of a mess going on in her personal life, so it’s interesting to see how she handles the pressure of work and home. The plot hinges more on good detective work than forensics though that is included, 21st century and all that. It’s just a great mystery and chase to catch the bad guy. Bonus that it’s in England so I get to see a bit more of how police procedure works outside of the States. If you’re looking for a twisty-turny police procedural then don’t pass this one up.
Third in the series about Oxford murder squad detective Josie Masters, this is a twisty, complex police procedural with a lot of disparate threads. You don’t want to be reading this while distracted, or put it down for a long time between reading sessions, because I think it would be easy to lose the threads and find it all very confusing. With that said, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it, because the author ties some apparently totally different cases together really cleverly and nothing is as it appears on the surface.
I’m going to address the elephant in the room by saying that now is a tough time to be writing stories with ‘good cops’ as the protagonists, but I think even the most fervent ‘abolish the police’ protestors would agree that the murder squad are police we will still need. However, the fact is that in a world with better resourced social services, lower or zero rates of homelessness and people who actually ask the hard questions and listen to answers when twelve-year-old girls turn up pregnant, Josie wouldn’t have had any murders to investigate. And that’s recognised in the text, if in a subtle way.
It’s easy to empathise with Josie as a single mother trying to get back into the swing of things at work just weeks after giving birth, only to find herself thrown in at the deep end when a friend is murdered. Josie’s not a rule-bender, just a proponent of solid investigative work and intelligent questioning when she gets a witness or a suspect to talk to. I think going forward we’ll see a lot more ‘smart cops’ portrayed in fiction and a lot less of the short-cutters who are inclined to beat up a suspect to get answers. Anyone who wants to write a sympathetic police protagonist could learn a lot from M.J. Ford. I enjoyed this engrossing read and am happy to give it five stars.
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this title via NetGalley.
After only* 6 months maternity leave, Jo Masters is rearing to go back to work. And she’s not settling for desk work, she wants to be on active duty.
When she responds to an emergency call, she finds her old friend and ex-policeman Harry Ferman unresponsive and covered in blood on the floor. The octogenarian is dying after being assaulted with a fire poker. They find evidence that there was a younger woman staying with Harry but it looks as if it was a hasty arrangement without much comfort or any romance.
Not much later they’re called in for a double homicide and discover that the missing girl is the couple’s daughter. There’s also a suspected link with a gang-related shooting. The investigation into all those different crimes that are somehow related is a difficult puzzle. Most of the police see the daughter as the perpetrator but Jo has reservations and thinks there’s another explanation.
The book starts out rather slow, with a child welfare worker looking in on little Theo who was bruised by a reckless driver that drove in the back of Jo’s parked car. The first day back at work is concentrated on a recent shooting incident connected to a local crime family.
The story is well written and keeps the suspense up. It’s rather violent and gritty compared to most British police procedurals, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The violence and killings are functional and not unnecessary vivid. Society is a lot more violent than 50 years ago and books reflect reality. The plot makes sense as well; it’s a grim picture of child welfare services though.
The chapters about the investigation are regularly interrupted by the thoughts and activity of someone called James. Who he is and what his involvement is becoming clearer as the story progresses.
Jo, the protagonist is easy to relate to. She’s a bit of a perfectionist and struggles to balance her highly demanding job as a police officer with her new status as a single mum. She’s rather insecure about her role as a new mother, constantly asking herself if she’s doing the right thing and giving enough attention and time to her baby.
I hardly noticed that this was the 3rd book in the series. So, if you haven’t read the previous 2 books, this is a good point to step in. It doesn’t mean that I won’t read them anyway
*6 months maternity leave is early to go back to work? I wish I lived there, as we get only 16 weeks in Belgium. And after that, she can get an additional 6 months as well. Be proud of your NHS, my English friends!
I thank Netgalley and Avon Books UK for a free ARC; this is my honest review of it.