Doyle was back at Scotland Yard after taking maternity leave, and the powers-that-be had decided they’d ease her way by assigning her to assist DS Isabella Munoz, which was a fate only slightly worse than death.Annoying, it was, that she had to answer to Munoz; not to mention that Munoz wasn’t given many high-quality homicide assignments in the first place.As a case in point, the first assignment … assignment out of the box was a possible suicide at the housing projects, something that happened with such regularity that it was a wonder the responding officer had even thought it worthy of a detective’s notice. . . .
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I love this series, I wish Kathleen Doyle was real so I could meet her!!
I am always excited when a new addition to the Doyle and Acton Mysteries series is released. I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It is well written, well plotted and the characters are complex and interesting. You can read this as a stand-alone book, but to get the real flavor for the characters, you really need to read at least the first couple of books – but why not read them all, they are all good, fun and quirky.
Scotland Yard has been through scandal after scandal over the last several books and many – if not most – of the higher-ups are either jailed or removed from their jobs. They are working short-handed, but hopefully, all of the bad actors and the scandals are behind them so they can concentrate on protecting the citizens and providing justice.
It is Doyle’s first day back from maternity leave and the powers-that-be have decided to ease her back into the routine by having her assist DS Munoz on her cases. They are almost immediately dispatched out to the scene of a dead body that they assume is an overdose. It is in the slum area that is riddled with drugs, so the assumption is a reasonable one. However, when they arrive, they discover that it is not self-induced – not accidentally nor purposefully. They have a murder on their hands.
Acton quickly arrives on the scene because he’s not happy that Doyle has been sent into that neighborhood. To say that Acton is a determinedly protective husband would be putting it very mildly. Not long after he arrives, he realizes that there is more to this scene than meets the eye. He quickly comes to understand that it was a set-up as a way to ambush DS Munoz and the only reason it didn’t go as planned was that Doyle was there also.
We soon learn that the last of the corruption isn’t yet out of Scotland Yard and that if things aren’t handled with finesse, there will be yet another scandal. As usual – Acton is behind the scenes manipulating things to work out the way he wants – and he keeps poor Doyle in the dark. Doesn’t matter, she always figures him out and calls him out on it.
This is a lovely, fun, quirky, and interesting read
Love this series. Can’t wait to read the next book.
Entertaining mystery series
Another wonderful Acton and Doyle mystery. These characters are like nothing I’ve read before. I can’t get enough of them!!
This is the 9th installment in one of my favorite mystery series, and it’s also one of the best (although nothing can beat book one, Murder in Thrall, which I read 4.5 times before I could move on to something else). Usually I get tired of a series by about the 5th or 6th book, but Doyle and Acton are such a great duo, so unusual, so complex, and so perfect for one another, that I dive into these present-day London police procedurals again and again. Thank you for another gripping story, Ms. Cleeland!
(BTW, Ms. Cleeland also writes some fab historical suspense.)
This is a wonderfully engaging series. The two main characters are very fully developed as three dimensional people.
I love their strange and quirky behaviors.
This is another dense story with much going on, but with little given away. We, the readers, are trying to work out the mystery just as Doyle is. Her “intuition” helps, but the situation is very complex and not easy to see.