REVIEWS

THE MONK . . . Between the covers

The idea of an investigating detective having what some people see as a disability is an interesting one. Jeffrey Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme is a tetraplegic who, effectively, cannot do ‘normal detective things’; Nero Wolfe is morbidly obese and rarely leaves his apartment – his cases are solved by his brain power and Archie Goodwin‘s leg-work; more recently, Harry Bingham’s Fiona Griffiths suffers from Cotard’s Delusion, aka Walking Corpse Syndrome, which gives her telling insights into murder investigations. Tim Sullivan introduced us to Detective Sergeant George Cross in The Dentist (2021). Cross has Asperger’s Syndrome* I will say now that this was one of those rare book that I simply didn’t want to end. I noted the advance of my bookmark through the pages with definite sadness.

*Symptoms include an inability to understand figurative speech, obsession with detail, difficulty with recognising emotional responses and lack of social awareness and empathy.

Author Tim Sullivan, very cleverly, pairs George Cross with fellow DS Josie Ottey, a married woman who is as ‘normal’ as Cross is ‘odd’. She acts as a kind of buffer between Cross and the people he must question as part of the job. What Cross brings to the party, however, is a kind of cold objectivity which, to counteract his inability to read a facial expression or tone of voice, gives him a laser-like clarity regarding the truth and logic of what witnesses or suspects tell him. The Monk is set in the Bristol area, and a body is found in the intriguingly named Goblin Combe*, a rural beauty spot beloved of hikers and tourists.

*A small dry valley beneath a hill. Commonly used in southern and south western England.

The body, brutally beaten, is found strapped to chair and abandoned in a ditch. It turns out to be that of a Benedictine monk, Brother Dominic, who had only recently been reported missing from a nearby monastic community, St Eustace’s Abbey. The victim was killed elsewhere and the corpse dumped. There only a dozen members of the order, all men who, for whatever reason, have chosen to reject the modern world in favour of a life of prayer and contemplation. George Cross rapidly sees that there are two obvious lines of enquiry; was Brother Dominic killed because of something that happened within the walls of the monastery, or did his murder relate to something in his previous life, where he was a very successful investment banker?

Without giving the game away, it is in Brother Dominic’s previous life where the clues are to be found, but answers don’t come easy for Cross and Ottey. Although there was a very clever plot twist involving the identity of the killer, I was far more involved with George Cross as a person than wondering who murdered Brother Dominic.The relationship between Cross and his father, the discombobulating effect of the re-emergence of his mother – lost to him since she left the family home when he was five – and his attraction to the unambiguous world of order, silence and simplicity of Dominic’s fellow monks, all contribute to the power of this compelling read.

The book is full of little treats and bonuses. Rather in the same way that The Nine Tailors doubled as a treatise on the arcane art of bell ringing, we learn that George Cross is an accomplished church organist, despite the concept of religious faith being totally alien to him. He spends his spare time by pushing the murder case to a corner compartment of his mind, and patiently dismantling the dysfunctional abbey pipe organ, then cleaning and re-assembling the separate parts so that the instrument can once again play a part in the liturgy. Sullivan (above left) also gives the staple of police procedural novels – the recorded interview – a new twist; Cross’s ‘disability’ is a blessing when it comes to his interview technique, as neither the suspect nor the duty lawyer can make head nor tail of his literal approach to everything that is said. Mistaking him for an idiot, however, becomes a serious error of judgment.

Sullivan’s experience as a film director and screenwriter gives the narrative an intensely visual feel, but he wisely lets us picture George Cross in our own way, providing little or no physical description of him. The Monk is a brilliant police procedural with an engaging central character and a clever plot. Published by Head of Zeus, it will be out on 27th April.

April 18, 2023 2

I WILL FIND YOU . . . Between the covers

Sometimes, the best writers set themselves challenges by posing a plot problem that appears to deny a plausible solution. One such was back in 2021 when, in The Perfect Lie, Jo Spain pulled the wool over our eyes. There, the deception hinged on a few words – and our (wrong) assumptions.

https://fullybooked2017.com/2021/05/13/the-perfect-lie-between-the-covers/

In his latest novel, Harlan Coben – to use the metaphor of Houdini – has wrapped himself in so many chains and padlocks that it seems impossible that he can set himself free. Why? Try this. Five years ago, David Burroughs was jailed for life for murdering his three year-old son, Matthew, with a baseball bat. He now languishes in the protected section of a high security jail, alongside child rapists, cannibals, and other monsters. After refusing to see any visitors for five years he is finally forced to see one – because he omitted to fill in the annual paperwork. It is his former sister-in-law Rachel; his wife, Cheryl has, inevitably, divorced him. Rachel shows David a photo (taken by a friend) of a family group at an amusement park. On the edge of the picture is a little boy, clutching the hand of an adult, otherwise out of picture. It is Matthew.

Coben gives us a drive-through account of the back story. David Burroughs was home-alone with Matthew that night. Cheryl, a surgeon, was at work. David was in a bad mood, put his son to bed without a bedtime story, and proceeded to get outside of the best part of a bottle of Bourbon. Somehow awakened by a sixth sense that something was wrong, or perhaps by the smell of blood, David staggered to his son’s bedroom only to find a mangled and unrecognisable corpse on the bed.

The first key to the mystery is, of course, that the shattered boy’s corpse was just that – unrecognisable. It was, however, in Matthew’s bed, wearing Matthew’s pyjamas. When, a little while later a baseball bat, with David’s fingerprints all over it, is found buried in the garden, David’s status changes from bereaved father, through suspect, to convicted killer.

The next key has to be putting David in a situation – i.e. no longer behind bars – where he can investigate the possibility that the child in the photograph is Matthew, and prove that the murdered boy in Matthew’s bed was someone else. The Governor of Briggs Penitentiary is Philip Mackenzie, and he has history with David Burroughs. David’s dad, Lenny, was, long ago, a grunt in Vietnam with Phil. The pair survived and went on to become partners in crime prevention as precinct cops. Now, Phil is just months away from retirement and a double pension, while Lenny is in the advanced stages of dementia. Suffice it to say there is a fairly improbable break-out from Briggs but this is, after all, crime-fiction.

Coben then throws a fairly heavy spanner into the works by revealing that at a rough stage in their marriage, when Cheryl and David were unable to conceive, Cheryl booked an appointment at a sperm donor clinic. This cleverly opens up all manner of potential twists and questions, which the author exploits to the maximum. It certainly had me guessing right up to the final few pages. If I say this a typically American slick thriller, it is meant as an entirely positive description. Somehow – and I won’t say they are better than British writers – American novelists such as Coben, Connolly, Baldacci and Kellerman produce a polished and gleaming product which has, to extend the automobile metaphor, a distinctive ‘new car smell’. I Will Find You is published by Century and is out now.

April 10, 2023 0

THE DEAD WILL RISE . . . Between the covers

Chris Nickson is a former music journalist, and has rubbed shoulders with the Great and The Good across the history of rock music, but in these latter days he has earned a considerable reputation as a historical novelist. His books are mostly centred on Leeds, and they cover different historical periods from the 1730s to the 1950s. His latest book features Georgian thief-taker Simon Westow. Back then, there was no organised police force; the only legal officials were parish constables, who tended to be elderly, infirm and incompetent. Westow is more like the 20th century concept of a Private Eye; he recovers stolen property and catches criminals – for a fee.

Here, he has an unusual assignment; Local factory boss Joseph Clark asks him to find the men who stole the buried corpse of Gwendolyn Jordan, the daughter of Harmony Jordan, one of his employees. The crime of body snatching is unique in that it involved acts of criminality carried out in the name – some might argue – of a greater good, that being anatomical and medical research. Westow wastes no time on moral philosophy, and with his assistant Jane he sets out to find the Resurrection Men.
RESMEN

Jane is, for me, the most compelling character in any of Nickson’s novels. Raped by her father, disowned by her mother, the teenager has made her living on the streets. Not in the conventional sense by selling her body, but by employing preternatural skills of awareness of danger, cunning and speed of thought; most fearsome of all is the fact that she will use her knife without a moment of compassion or hesitation. She is a stone-cold killer, as many men – now dead and buried – would testify, were they still able to.

Westow’s case load becomes more complex when he and Jane are summoned to the elegant mansion of the infamous Mrs Parker – infamous because she is renowned in Leeds for marrying a series of wealthy men, who then die, leaving her with an ever expanding fortune. Just for once, she has been bested. A lover has swindled her out of £50 – over £5000 in today’s money – and she wants recompense.

When the usually invulnerable Jane is bested by one of the thugs involved in the corpse trade, and is hurled from a bridge, she is lucky to escape with cuts and bruises. Her pride is hurt more, though, and she vows vengeance. Eventually the elusive Resurrection Men are tracked down, but Westow and his wife Rosie are convinced that there is one big player in the racket left to catch, and this leads to a thrilling – and unexpected – end to the case,

Nickson’s narrative voice is totally authentic: Simon Westow, his family, and others in his world live and breathe as if they are they were standing with us in the same room. He makes the Leeds of April 1824 as real and vivid as if we had just stepped down from the York stagecoach. The Dead Will Rise is published by Severn House and is out now.

March 28, 2023 0

THE CLOSE . . . Between the covers

Jane Casey’s DS Maeve Kerrigan series hits double figures with The Close. The London copper first has to deal with the murder of a doctor, Hassan Dawoud, found dead in his car in the hospital car park. His husband Cameron is a likely suspect, as the pair often fought, but he has an unshakable alibi. Then she is seriously sidetracked. The death of a vulnerable man called Davy Bidwell, found virtually mummified in a derelict house, has raised serious questions. Why was his broken body covered in all kinds of wounds, and what became of him after he left his last known address – in Jellicoe Close, an apparently safe middle-class suburban street?

One – or perhaps several – of the long term residents of Jellicoe Close must know what happened to Davy Bidwell. The death has left the Met with egg all over its gold braid ceremonial uniform, and in order to make up for earlier failings, the top brass decide to plant two officers – disguised as civilians – into the community in an attempt to discover what happened.The two chosen for this surveillance are Kerrigan – and DI Josh Derwent, They are ‘of an age’ to be a plausible couple, and are smart enough to pull off the deception that they are house-sitting for a genuine resident.

Meanwhile, Kerrigan has to try to keep tabs on the Hassan Dawoud investigation on the phone to her colleague DC Georgia Shaw, who comes over as attractive and talkative, but perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Jane Casey uses a sizeable chunk of the middle part of the book to dwell on the “will-they-won’t-they” aspect of Kerrigan’s relationship with Derwent. As they they insert themselves into the social dynamic of Jellicoe Close, a certain amount of public affection is necessary to keep up the charade, but what happens when the pair are out of the public gaze? Jane Casey (left) lets us know that the killer is watching and observing the newcomers as they blend into the suburban lifestyle of over-the-fence gossip, barbecues, football matches and drinks parties.

Although the residents of Jellicoe Close are not on an island, Jane Casey recreates a similar sense of claustrophobia and mistrust pioneered all those years ago by Agatha Christie in And Then There Were None. The parallel, I suppose, is that what traps the people in Jellicoe Close is not the sea, but a combination of their own suspicions, misplaced loyalties and prejudices. After several false turns – and another death – the two detectives find a way through the maze of apparently conflicting accounts of the events which led up to the death of Davy Bidwell.

Meanwhile, the not-as-dim-as-we-thought Georgia Shaw has cracked the case of the killing of Hassan Dawoud, which only leaves Kerrigan and Derwent to mull over the effects of their pretence as lovers. The romantic relationship between Kerrigan and Derwent became a bit too breathless for me, but that didn’t spoil my enjoyment of a cracking police procedural where the main characters are skillfully drawn on a carefully observed backdrop of suburban life and – more importantly – the reality behind the charade that “perfect” families sometimes present to the public gaze is exposed as a charade. The Close is published by Harper Collins and is available now.

March 15, 2023 0

TWIST OF FATE . . . Between the covers

The story begins with a violent prelude in an English country churchyard. It is dark, cold and damp, Thomas Gray’s “rugged elms” are almost certainly present, and his “rude forefathers of the hamlet” still sleep beneath their headstones, but there is little else elegiac about the scene. A couple, married – although not to each other – are using the sexton’s shed for sex. Then something awful happens. How this links to the main narrative of the book is not made clear until much later.

In another place – a prestigious building in central London – we meet a brother and sister. They couldn’t be more different, Claudine Cadjou is a well-known political lobbyist, used to schmoozing the media and well-versed in the dark arts of the professional publicist. She is suave and chic. Her brother Jethro looks like a madman. His clothes are one step up from rags. He is dirty and unkempt. His home, if such it can be called, is a semi derelict farmhouse in the Lincolnshire fens. He is basically ‘in care’ with Claudine paying his neighbours to make sure he doesn’t starve. Once, he had a brilliant mind, but it has all but been destroyed by psychotic episodes linked to substance abuse. While talking, Claudine is fighting a battle between embarrassment at her brother showing up on her turf, and her love for this wreck of a man. Then her discomfort turns to terror when an unknown man storms into the atrium of the building and stabs Jethro to death.

The man who killed Jethro has just committed several other atrocities nearby. More people are dead, and several not expected to survive. At this point we meet a London copper, DS Benny Dean. Another soul – another torment – but of a different kind. His wife of many years is also a copper, but she has risen through the ranks and now she is a Chief Superintendent. And she wants a divorce. Like Claudine, she is sophisticated, cultured and ambitious. Even her name has changed from homely ‘Fran’ to the media chic ‘Cesca’ Benny has tried his best, put his career on hold while hers prospered, but now she wants out. And the cruelest irony of all? As police are mobilised to investigate the murders, Benny’s wife is put in charge of the investigation, and he has to remember to use the word ‘ma’am’ when phoning in reports.

Benny and his partner DC Helen Savage, and, separately, Claudine, travel to Lincolnshire to investigate Jethro’s’s recent history. At this point it is worth reminding readers about the fens, their geography, their place in literature, and the social history of the area. First, a geological distinction; low lying areas which were once under fresh water are known as fens, while areas reclaimed from the sea are, more properly, marshland. One of the great crime novels in history, The Nine Tailors, was set in the fens (well known to DL Sayers from her days as a rural rector’s daughter) while Jim Kelly’s Philip Dryden series takes place in and around Ely. Graham Swift’s Waterland deals entirely with the darker aspects of fenland history, while John Betjeman wrote a deeply scary poem called A Lincolnshire Tale, wherein a traveler encounters a spectral vicar who still rings the bells in his abandoned church.

“The remoteness was awful, the stillness intense,
Of invisible fenland, around and immense;
And out on the dark, with a roar and a swell,
Swung, hollowly thundering, Speckleby bell.”

I live in the fens and, to this day, there is an insularity about the remote villages and a lingering sense of suspicion about outsiders which I have never encountered anywhere else in England.

Looking back on my previous reviews of David mark’s novels, I see that I have – more than once – likened his work to that of Derek Raymond, I won’t labour the point, but Benny Dean is a 21st century version of Raymond’s valiant but tormented nameless sergeant. Death stalks this book like some hideously deformed entity in an MR James ghost story; it is superbly written, but not for the faint hearted. Twist of Fate is published by Head of Zeus and is available now. For more by DL Mark (writing as David Mark) click the author image below.

March 12, 2023 1

EMERGENCE . . . Between the covers

It has been a while since I read a Guy Portman novel. The last one I read was Golgotha, back in 2019, and clicking the link will take you to my review. That saw the demise of his wonderfully incorrect anti-hero Dyson Devereux, but now he introduces us to someone who might be a teenage version of DD. Horatio Robinson is clearly “on the spectrum”, as Special Educational Needs and Disabilities teachers might say. I confess to having Googled that to make sure it was still the ‘correct’ term as, having been out of schools for ten years, I wondered if the terminology had mutated into something more flowery and Californian.

Horatio is fixated with Trigonometry, reads French dictionaries and Dickens to relax, and has a visceral hatred of his mother’s boyfriend – an absolute oik called Brendan. Horatio’s mother – Rakesha – is from Antigua, but his father fled the scene when Horatio was five. Horatio is busy applying his love of sine, cosine and tangent in an art lesson, after the teacher sets the class the task of producing a completely symmetrical design. When the class bully – Dominic – damages Horatio’s work, Horatio – as you do – picks up a pair of scissors and impales Dominic’s hand to the desk. He is, of course, immediately suspended from school and, as part of the process, has to visit a counsellor. I don’t know what contact Guy Portman has had with these people but, from my experience, his version is chillingly authentic. Horatio, by the way, narrates the story:

“She does more talking, much more. She asks some questions. The spikey hair, grinning and whiny voice is terrible combination. And she keeps leaning towards me, close enough that I could smack her in the face.
‘I’ve heard about your issue at school. Could you tell me in your own words what happened?’
‘No.’
‘Well, it would be really helpful if you could.’
‘Helpful for whom?’ ‘
‘Well, you, of course.’
She’s grinning again.”

It took me a while to twig that Horatio’s absent father is, of course, none other than than Dyson Devereux himself. Horatio, permanently excluded from his school, now has time on his hands to perfect a way of ridding his world of the loathsome Brendan. After getting chased out his local library for researching (in the interests of science) Erotic Auto-Asphxiation, he concocts a complex plan which he hopes will remove Brendan in a way that will also shame the dead man, while in no way linking the crime to himself.

Portman says:
“I have always been an introverted creature with an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and a sardonic sense of humour. Throughout a childhood in London spent watching cold war propaganda gems such as He Man, an adolescence confined in various institutions, and a career that has encompassed stints in academic research and the sports industry, I have been a keen if somewhat cynical social observer.”

This cynicism is a sheer delight, especially to readers who, like me, cast a jaundiced eye over our descent into a progressive madness, typified by those in ‘public service’ who thoughtlessly espouse every insane social fad imported from America. Portman chooses his targets well in this novel. ‘Woke’ teachers, failed psychologists masquerading as counsellors, and the frequently dystopian world of mothers deserted by fathers, and the often calamitous consequences for the children of that disunion, all come under fire. Portman turns over a heavy stone, and all kinds of nasty creatures scuttle away to avoid the light of day. Emergence may be a polemic, but in shooting down pretty much every modern moral and social balloon it is immensely entertaining, and very, very funny. It is out now.

March 6, 2023 1

THE TEMENOS REMAINS . . . Between the covers

A temenos (Greek: τέμενος; plural: τεμένη, temenē) is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, such as a sanctuary, holy grove, or holy precinct.

This is the fourth book in a series featuring Norfolk copper DCI Greg Geldard, but author Heather Peck (left) wastes no time in providing all the back-story we need. Geldard is divorced from his former wife, Isabelle, who is a professional singer. She has now remarried a celebrated orchestral conductor, with whom she has a child, while Geldard is in a relationship with one of his colleagues, DS Chris Mathews. When he gets an early morning ‘phone call from Isabelle saying she and her son have been threatened by a foreign criminal connected to one of Geldard’s previous cases, he is forced to stay at arm’s length, but is disturbed to hear from a colleague that Isabelle may be making the story up.

With this at the back of his mind, he has to focus on human remains found during an archaeological dig. Not unusual, you might think, but this skeleton has modern dental work and was buried with a 1911 silver thruppence in its mouth. After mining down into HOLMES, the national police database, Geldard’s team discover more cases that seem to be similar, and when part of the cliff near Hemsby collapses in a violent storm, another skeleton is revealed, along with its now obligatory coin. Meanwhile, in a series of short episodes which she calls ‘Entr’actes’, Peck introduces us to the man we presume is the killer, but these paragraphs are, at first, enigmatic, and only make sense towards the end of the book when the killer becomes a person of interest to the team.

Geldard’s relationship with Chris Mathews comes under a strain as she resents what she sees as his lingering affection for his former wife, and she is equally unhappy about his working relationship with DI Sarah Laurence. Do real-life coppers get into relationships with close colleagues? I don’t know, but other fictional social partnerships I recall were Tom Thorne and Helen Weeks in the Mark Billingham books, and Peter Robinson’s DCI Banks and his feisty on-off partner Annie Cabbot.

Eventually, the killer makes a big mistake and is pulled in, Geldard’s only problem being to convince the CPS that he is fit to stand trial and plead. There is to be no celebratory night in the pub, however. Heather Peck has kept the sub-plot featuring the foreign gangster gently simmering in the background, but right at the end she turns up the heat – and leaves us with a cliffhanger worthy of Scheherazade’s tales.

I loved the Norfolk setting of this story, and as a former resident, I can vouch for its authenticity. Greg Geldard is pleasantly ‘normal’ for a fictional senior detective, and Heather Peck relies on her mastery of modern police methods to hold our interest and keep the story ticking along. The Temenos Remains is published by Ormesby Publishing and is out now.

Heather Peck is certainly a busy woman. As well as writing novels, she has been a farmer, chaired an NHS Trust, has worked on animal welfare, sailed a boat on the Broads, volunteered in Citizens Advice and the Witness Service and vaccinated humans against Covid. To find out more, go to her website.

February 28, 2023 0

UNNATURAL HISTORY . . . Between the covers

Guilty pleasures? At my time of life, there should be no guilt involved. I have no intention of troubling the funeral director just yet, but I am nearly six years over my biblically allotted span and I will take every opportunity to enjoy my reading on my terms, and I do love a good series. Yes, I know the analogies – comfortable slippers, well-worn cardigan and all the rest. But why not? When time is not on one’s side, what is the point of enduring the pain of breaking in new shoes? Other metaphors are available, but here are a few of my favourite series by authors who are still with us.

With that heartfelt (not) apology out of the way, here’s my take on the latest Alex Delaware novel from Jonathan Kellerman, Unnatural History. Quick bio. of Dr Alex Delaware (who first appeared in 1985, so he is one of those characters for whom time stands still). He is a Los Angeles forensic psychologist, his live-in girlfriend is a builder/restorer of high end guitars and stringed instruments, and he is involved in crime due to his friendship with Detective Milo Sturgis who is gay, very smart, and a man who, if eating were an Olympic event, would be a multiple gold medal winner.

Adonis ‘Donny’ Klement, an artist who specialises in photography, has been found shot dead in his converted warehouse studio. Three bullets to the chest, bang, bang bang – a concise equilateral triangle. Donny is a member of a very unusual family. His father Viktor is an elusive and secretive billionaire businessman, so careful to escape publicity that not a single photograph of him exists. He has a strange habit. He marries, fathers a child, and then moves on. Donny was the latest progeny, but he had several half-siblings.

By all accounts, Donny was gentle, talented, but rather naive. His most recent project was called The Wishers. He recruited several homeless down-and-outs, dressed them in exotic and fantastical costumes,and photographed them. They were well paid, but was one of them deranged enough to come back and murder the man who, if only for a brief hour, had enabled them to act out their fantasies?

Delaware and Sturgis are convinced that the murder of Klement is connected with the street people he brought into his studio, and when one of them – a deaf mute woman called Jangles – is found strangled, it begins to look as if they are right. Or are they? There is an elegant and clever plot twist which confirms that they were, but not quite in the way they were expecting.

As well as Kellerman’s taut dialogue and plotting, we should not forget that he is up there with the best writers (including his contemporary Michael Connolly and the Master himself, Raymond Chandler) in bringing to life the dramatic contrasts of the LA landscape, with its beaches, grim neon strip-malls, spectacular hills and – more recently – the horrific shanty cities full of homeless down-and-outs. Yes, of course this is ‘formula fiction’, but it is also CriFi of the highest quality. Delaware and Sturgis are perfect partners; they are a long way from being ‘two peas in a pod’, but each feeds off the other’s strengths and abilities. Unnatural History is a riveting read, and will be available from Century/Penguin Random House from 16th February. Click the image below to read more reviews of books by Jonathan Kellerman.

February 13, 2023 0

FINAL TERM . . . Between the covers

Oh, Blimey, yet another long running series to which I am a stranger. Better late than never, even if I am starting with the nineteenth of the series featuring York copper Geraldine Steel. As a former school teacher (just the forty years at the chalk-face) I can report that in modern schools, a peculiar kind of justice prevails. At the first complaint of serious misbehaviour by a member of staff, said teacher is out on his or her ear – “suspended, pending investigation”. Despite the mealy-mouthed rider that “suspension is not an indication of wrong-doing”, it is plain for all to see that the teacher is guilty until proven innocent. And that is precisely what happens to teacher Paul Moore in Final Term when he falls foul of a rather unpleasant teenager called Cassie Jackson. She claims he has molested her, and he is immediately shown the door, while Cassie’s claim is examined.

Sadly, there is not much time for a thorough investigation, as Cassie’s dead body is found in nearby woodland. The post mortem reveals that she died from a severe blow to the head, she was full of alcohol. There is no sign of recent sexual trauma, but she had undergone an abortion in the last twelve months or so. DI Steel and her team swing into action, but clues are scarce. Cassie’s 18 year-old boyfriend is initially suspected, but his anger at her death seems genuine. The, with the case going nowhere, another girl from the same school is found naked and dead, and the fears deepen that a serial killer may be at large.

When both Paul Moore and his wife Laura are proved to have lied to the police about what they were doing on the night of Cassie’s murder, Geraldine’s boss senses that Moore ticks at least two of the standard boxes in a murder investigation – he had the motive and the opportunity. Geraldine is, however, uneasy about the arrest, as there is nothing forensically to link Moore to the murders. We, too, guess that he didn’t do it, as we meet the real killer about half way through the book. He is, though, rather like those anonymous TV confessions back in the day, merely a silhouette.

With Paul Moore languishing in a police cell, Laura Moore goes missing. Then, Geraldine makes that mistake which is a trope in so many novels and films – she goes off on her own, following a hunch, but telling no-one where she is going. Inevitably, she falls foul of the killer, and with her live-in partner Ian, a fellow copper, heavily involved, the search for the missing women brings Final Term to an exciting conclusion.

Leigh Russell (right) studied literature at university, and spent four years immersed in books. After that,she became a teacher, a career that enabled her to share her enthusiasm for books with teenagers. For years, she read other people’s books with no plans to write her own, when the idea for a story popped into her mind. Intrigued by a fictitious killer who had arrived, unbidden, to lurk in her imagination, she began to write a story. That story, Cut Short, was shortlisted for a CWA Dagger Award, and went on to become the first in a long running series. She now has three series to her name. Besides DI Geraldine Steel, her other books feature Steel’s sergeant Ian Peterson, and a civilian investigator called Lucy Hall.

Just in case anyone should get sniffy and dismiss this – and other books in the series – as “formulaic”, let me ask this. Do you complain about the repetitive structure of the Sherlock Holmes stories? Is it a turn-off that the Nero Wolfe stories always begin with Archie Goodwin presenting a problem to his boss in Wolfe’s apartment?. Are the Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels unreadable because of the ever present Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes, Bert Kling, Meyer Meyer and Pete Byrnes? I think we all know the answer. If the other eighteen books in this series are anywhere near as good as Final Term, then Leigh Russell has earned her place on the CriFi podium.

Final Term is published by No Exit Press and is on sale now.