eBook, 320 pages
English language
Published June 2, 2020 by Random House.
Newly married and navigating life with a preschooler as well as her adopted adolescent son, Manon Bradshaw is happy to be working part-time in the cold cases department of the Cambridgeshire police force, a job that allows her to potter in, coffee in hand, and log on for a spot of Internet shopping—precisely what she had in mind when she thought of work-life balance. But beneath the surface Manon is struggling with the day-to-day realities of what she’d assumed would be domestic bliss: fights about whose turn it is to clean the kitchen, the bewildering fatigue of having a young child while in her forties, and the fact that she is going to couples counseling alone because her husband feels it would just be her complaining.
But when Manon is on a walk with her four-year-old son in a peaceful suburban neighborhood and discovers the body of a Lithuanian immigrant …
Newly married and navigating life with a preschooler as well as her adopted adolescent son, Manon Bradshaw is happy to be working part-time in the cold cases department of the Cambridgeshire police force, a job that allows her to potter in, coffee in hand, and log on for a spot of Internet shopping—precisely what she had in mind when she thought of work-life balance. But beneath the surface Manon is struggling with the day-to-day realities of what she’d assumed would be domestic bliss: fights about whose turn it is to clean the kitchen, the bewildering fatigue of having a young child while in her forties, and the fact that she is going to couples counseling alone because her husband feels it would just be her complaining.
But when Manon is on a walk with her four-year-old son in a peaceful suburban neighborhood and discovers the body of a Lithuanian immigrant hanging from a tree with a mysterious note attached, she knows her life is about to change. Suddenly, she is back on the job full-force, trying to solve the suicide—or is it a murder—in what may be the most dangerous and demanding case of her life.
Definitely not as good as the first one, or even the second one in the series, and the treatment of the son and the sister was a bit forced (won’t go into details). Manon is still compelling, but the hyper-realistic writing with the details of marriage and kids was getting old and even boring. The actual police work part is great and kept me reading.
A police procedural set in Cambridgeshire England, with DI Manon Bradshaw. The character still grates on me because she is so unhappy in her own life. She alternately wants to be free of her relationships and family and desperately wants them to never go away. I found myself frequently thinking "stop waffling and commit" because of how much time the text spends inside her head.
However, I love her as a police detective, and I loved this particular crime-solving tale. Lukas and Matis are undocumented Lithuanian immigrants to England, living in squalor in effective slavery. The townsfolk hate them because they think the Lithuanians are taking their jobs and women. The neighbor particularly hates Lukas because he has been sleeping with his wife, and another hates Matis because he's spent time with his impressionable daughter. The Lithuanian bosses use them ruthlessly and are apt to disappear them if trouble arises. …
A police procedural set in Cambridgeshire England, with DI Manon Bradshaw. The character still grates on me because she is so unhappy in her own life. She alternately wants to be free of her relationships and family and desperately wants them to never go away. I found myself frequently thinking "stop waffling and commit" because of how much time the text spends inside her head.
However, I love her as a police detective, and I loved this particular crime-solving tale. Lukas and Matis are undocumented Lithuanian immigrants to England, living in squalor in effective slavery. The townsfolk hate them because they think the Lithuanians are taking their jobs and women. The neighbor particularly hates Lukas because he has been sleeping with his wife, and another hates Matis because he's spent time with his impressionable daughter. The Lithuanian bosses use them ruthlessly and are apt to disappear them if trouble arises. One fellow resident of the house gets sick. Rather than get medical care for him, they let him die and disappear his body.
All of these people are viable suspects when Lukas body is found hanging from a tree with a note reading "Mirusieji negali kalbėti" attached.
What I loved most about this is that the crime & investigation doesn't involve a bunch of improbable coincidences, and that the investigation is basic police legwork: interviews, reviewing surveillance video, reviewing logs of phone calls & license plate readers, etc. It's a mark of a good writer that Susie Steiner was able to craft a compelling story with twists & turns and do it without the improbable crutches so prevalent in the genre. It's a shame she died, as this book was the best of the series and I would have eagerly snapped up new entries.
