This is rapidly becoming a favourites amongst my recently discovered detective series – it is so good! I absolutely flew through this book, reading more or less straight on from the first in the series, Critical Incidents, and finishing this in less than two days (which is very fast for me, not the speediest of readers!)
Now, we ended the first book with Robin Lyons at a crossroads, with two job opportunities open to her: should she return to her old job in London, the city she and her daughter Lennie lived in for so long and loved so much? Or should she remain in her childhood home in Birmingham, to which she had returned after being forced out of the Met in disgrace? With her parents getting older, and the opportunity of a step-up to a DCI position, she decides to remain in Birmingham, under the command of Samir, her first love, who remains a good friend.
She’s quickly flung into her first murder case, leading the investigation of a girl stabbed to death. She’s in her late teens/early twenties, found in an abandoned factory by an urban explorer, wrapped in an old piece of carpet. They have nothing with which to identify her: no purse, tattoos, or scars; her clothes are utterly anonymous, easily available on any high street in the UK. But someone must recognise her, surely, so they put together a picture of how she would have looked alive, and wait for the calls to come in…except they don’t…
A few days later they have another stabbed girl – Birmingham is in the midst of a knife crime epidemic – just ten minutes walk away from their Jane Doe. This girl is easier to identify – she lives nearby, and was presumably on her way home when attacked. But are the two victims linked? Are they dealing with one murderer, or two? They are both Robin’s cases, and the press do their best to suggest they could be dealing with a possible serial killer, putting added pressure on Robin. They also drag her past mistakes in London into things, as well as the fact she has a new love interest…well, not entirely new; someone from her past…
Meanwhile, her irksome brother Luke is – predictably – causing trouble. He hasn’t changed, constantly needling Robin about the fact that, because she’s had more career success than him, she thinks she’s better than him. When his partner Natalie suggests a trial separation and he loses the plot, Robin reluctantly comes to his rescue – but he isn’t remotely grateful; in fact, the very opposite…
I really enjoy the way the whole Lyons family are included in the book, and the scenes involving them are just as compelling as the police investigation. Robin’s previously fit and relentlessly organised mother becomes ill, and Robin sees a vulnerable side to her mother she’d never seen previously, which forces her to rethink their previously prickly relationship. In fact, throughout this book Robin is made to rethink a lot of opinions she’d previously cast in stone.
There’s also a great deal of racial tension in the city, whipped up by a particularly nasty right-wing vlogger, Ben Tyrell. This all comes to a head with confrontational marches between his right-wing supporters, versus students and other, more reasonably-minded people.
Lingering throughout the book is the mystery of the first victim, and who she can possibly be – after all, if you know nothing about the victim then how can you possibly find out who would want her dead?
This is a fabulous read – possibly even better than the first in the series, now that Robin’s established back in Birmingham permanently and her and Lennie have their own flat, with her daughter growing up quickly. All the characters are believable and three-dimensional, and it has some very witty lines to lighten both the stress of the investigation and the racial conflict in the city. I found the twist in the tale incredibly satisfying, as well as a little bit scary. Like me, I defy you to be able to put this book down once you start reading! Roll on the next in the series…
Final verdict: A superbly written modern police procedural with a chilling twist!
With thanks to Compulsive Readers for the blog tour invitation and 4th Estate Books for the ARC. This has not affected my opinion, and this is an honest review.
Author Lucie Whitehouse
BLURB: Robin Lyons is back in her hometown of Birmingham and now a DCI with Force Homicide, working directly under Samir, the man who broke her heart almost twenty years ago.
When a woman is found stabbed to death in a derelict factory and no one comes forward to identify the body, Robin and her team must not only hunt for the murderer, but also solve the mystery of who their victim might be.
As Robin and Samir come under pressure from their superiors, from the media and from far-right nationalists with a dangerous agenda, tensions in Robin’s own family threaten to reach breaking point. And when a cold case from decades ago begins to smoulder and another woman is found dead in similar circumstances, rumours of a serial killer begin to spread.
In order to get to the truth Robin will need to discover where loyalty ends and duty begins. But before she can trust, she is going to have to forgive – and that means grappling with some painful home truths.