THE IMPOSTER . . . Between the covers

Author Leona Deakin started her career as a psychologist with the West Yorkshire Police. She is now an occupational psychologist, and this is the fourth book in her series featuring Augusta Bloom.

Dr Augusta Bloom is a psychologist who specialises in the criminal mind. Her business partner is Marcus Jameson, a former British intelligence agent. Bloom is often employed by the police as a consultant when a particular case demands her particular skill-set. The killers Bloom is requested to track down have struck twice, leaving only burnt matches as a clue. I use the plural ‘killers’ advisedly, as we know they are a team, but Bloom and the police have yet to discover this.

As with the previous novels, there are two parallel plots in The Imposter. One involves Seraphine Walker who is, if you will, Moriarty to Bloom’s Holmes. Walker, despite being clinically psychopathic, is not overtly criminal, but has recruited all kinds of people who most certainly are. She heads up an organisation which, to those who enjoy a good conspiracy theory, is rather like a fictional World Economic Forum, peopled by shadowy but powerful influencers from across the globe, united by a hidden agenda The relationship between Bloom and Walker has an added piquancy because they were once doctor and patient. The backstory also involves someone we met in a previous novel – the disgraced former Foreign Secretary Gerald Porter, a ruthless man who is now happily bent on evil, unimpeded by the constraints of being a government minister with the eyes of the world on him.

Augusta Bloom is an interesting creation. She is a loner, and not someone who finds personal relationships easy, not with Marcus Jameson nor with her notional boss, DCI Mirza, who is deeply sceptical about Bloom’s insights. When the police finally join all the dots, they realise that rather than two killings, there have probably been as many as eleven, which ramps up the pressure on Bloom and Jameson. Leona Deakin, (right) as one might expect from a professional psychologist, has constructed an complex relationship between Bloom, Walker and Jameson. As readers, we are not spoon-fed any moral certainties about the trio. Rather, we infer that their boundaries are, perhaps, elastic. As John Huston (as Noah Cross) said in Chinatown:
“You see, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they’re capable of anything.”
Each of the trio – Bloom, Jameson and Walker – has a certain dependence on the two others, but Deakin keeps it open and enigmatic, leaving all plot options open to her. This symbiotic relationship has led to Augusta Bloom taking an industry – standard test to discover if she is herself a *psychopath. To her relief, although she is marking her own paper, she doesn’t tick enough boxes.

**Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits.*

Finally, Bloom cracks the mystery, Mirza and Jameson see the light, and we readers realise that Leona Deakin has been pulling the wool over our eyes for nearly 300 pages. There is a tense and violent finale, and this clever and engaging novel ends with us looking forward to the next episode in this excellent series.

The Imposter is published by Penguin and is available in paperback and Kindle now. For reviews of the three previous novels in the series, click the links below.

GONE
LOST
HUNT

December 13, 2022 0

An autumn garland of goodness sits on my shelf today. Reading definitely gets easier as the days become shorter – one of the few compensations of winter.

THE FAMILY TREE MYSTERY by Peter Bartram

I love this series set in and around Brighton in the 1960s. The former journalist combines nostalgia, likeable characters, daft jokes, clever references to the politics and social habits of the time, and addictive story lines. In this latest episode the (possibly autobiographical) crime reporter for the Brighton Evening Chronicle – Colin Crampton – and his gorgeous Aussie girlfriend Shirley Goldsmith become entangled in a murder mystery involving a distant relative of Shirley’s, who is found murdered. The Family Tree Mystery is published by The Bartram Partnership, and the paperback is available now.

THE IMPOSTER by Leona Deakin

A welcome return here for Dr Augusta Bloom, a psychologist with a particular skill in solving criminal cases. In this, the fourth in the series, she is on the trail of an elusive serial killer whose victims include a stock-market trader is pushed from a high-rise balcony and falls to his death on the street below, and a member of the Saudi Royal Family, whose decomposing body is discovered in a car. This is published by Penguin and will be out in paperback on 24th November. Previous books in the series can be explored here.

THE SANDRINGHAM MYSTERY by Christina James

Mostly set in the Lincolnshire area known as South Holland, this novel also echoes a real life murder from 2012, when the remains of Latvian teenager Alisa Dmitrijeva was found on the late Queen’s estate near Sandringham. Lincolnshire copper, DI Tim Yates, becomes involved with the murder when the clothes the dead girl was wearing are identified as work-wear from a food processing factory, whose owner – Kevan de Vries – has come to the attention of the police when a pile of forged passports – and some long dead corpses – are found in the cellar of his mansion. This novel came out earlier this year, and is published by Bloodhound Books.

RUN TO GROUND by Stuart Johnstone

Tartan Noir now, with the third book by Stuart Johnstone featuring Edinburgh copper Don Colyear. Colyear has made the transition from his role as a Community Police Sergeant to a new position in Edinburgh’s CID, but the adjustment has not been easy. The workload and paperwork are one thing but being micro-managed by DCI Templeton as well is more than testing. When Colyear’s investigation into a mysterious death spirals into a complicated case centred on a massive consignment of Class A drugs, a double murder and a clash between low-level and professional criminals, his instincts are put to the test. This is from Allison & Busby, and you can get hold of a copy from 17th November.

MURDER UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN by Rachel Rhys

Scottish crime novels are routinely described as ‘gritty’, but the same adjective could never be used to describe this latest novel from Rachel Rhys. We are in post WW2 Italy, in the lush landscape of Tuscany, where the lavish villas are peopled by the rich and glamorous, including an ailing gentleman art-dealer, his dazzling niece, her handsome Fascist husband, their neglected young daughter, the housekeeper who knows everything – and Connie, the English widow working for them. But all is far from well for Connie. At night, she hears hears sinister noises and a terrible wailing inside the walls, and she fears she is losing her grip on reality. If this has whetted your appetite, then I’m afraid you will have to wait until March 2023 to find out more, but I shall be posting a full review of this Penguin publication a little nearer the time.

THE SIX WHO CAME TO DINNER by Anne Youngson

Not hardcore crime fiction, I suspect, but this collection of six linked stories includes: The village cleaning lady who holds everyone’s house-keys opens a boot to find some unexpectedly dead contents; a vengeful dinner party host serves more than just a roast to her six guests; and driven to distraction by his new young wife, a man resorts to two grisly acts, in a gripping re-imagining of a famous Irish ballad. Ripping away the polite façade of small communities, these stories of love, lies and revenge reveal the roiling emotions and frustration that can lead seemingly good people to do bad things. Rich in compassion, pathos and humour, Anne Youngson offers us her dark take on human foibles, pettiness and rivalry in this collection. My copy is a rather elegant and beautifully produced hardback. It is published by Doubleday, and is available now.