Connections

The Sound of Broken Glass by Deborah Crombie (William Morrow hardcover, 19 February 2013).

 The story begins fifteen years ago, as we meet a 13-year-old boy who lives in a rundown flat with his mother, who works in a local pub.  The boy, Andy, has to keep track of the money his mother earns so she doesn't fritter it away on drink and cigarettes.  He's a loner, until he meets the new next-door neighbor, a young woman who tells him her name is Nadine.

In the present-day, Detective Inspector Gemma  James is called early one Saturday morning to report to a homicide scene, at a hotel in an area of London called Crystal Palace.  A naked man has been found in a seedy hotel, bound and strangled.  Was it a kinky encounter gone wrong, or something more deliberate?
 The body turns out to be that of a well-respected barrister named Vincent Arnott.  As Gemma and her team begin to retrace his path of the previous evening, they discover that his evening had begun at a local pub, which he left after an altercation with one of the band members, though obviously not alone.

Meanwhile, Gemma's husband, Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid is taking his turn staying at home with Charlotte, their three-year-old foster daughter.  Although he's trying hard to not interfere with his wife's case, he encounters a friend who knows the same young musician, and discovers that perhaps London isn't such a big city after all.

Deborah Crombie moves skilfully between the 1990s and today, weaving an intricate and compelling web of connections.  It's wonderful to experience the development of Gemma and Duncan's relationship, along with their family and careers.  They're like long-time friends whom we don't see often, but look forward to meeting again soon.




FTC Full Disclosure:  I received an e-galley of the book through Edelweiss.

Cheating Death

Last to Die (Rizzoli and Isles #10) by Tess Gerritsen (Ballantine hardcover, 28 August 2012).

When Teddy Clock was twelve, his family was living on a yacht in the Caribbean.  Anchored in a quiet bay near Saint Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, one night, the boat exploded.  His parents and his two sisters were killed, but Teddy was found in the water, wearing a life jacket,  by a dive boat the next morning, unable to describe what happened.

Two years later, Teddy is living with a foster family, the Ackermans, in an wealthy area of Boston.  Jane Rizzoli is called to their house in Louisburg Square, to find that Bernard and Cecelia Ackerman and their three daughters have been shot to death.  Teddy hid under his bed until the killer left, and then ran next door to the neighbor's house.

Assigned as Teddy's primary contact, Jane is loathe to send him to yet another foster home.  She whisks him to a very private boarding school, Evensong, whose students are limited to youngsters who have been the victims of violent crime, and include Maura Isles' adopted son Julian. Intended to be a sanctuary for the traumatised kids, the school is situated in the midst of several acres of Maine forests.

But as Jane digs deeper into the mystery of Teddy's life, she begins to think that the two incidents may not have been accidental, that the killer wants something from this boy.  Determined to keep the students of Evensong safe, she and Maura must discover the killer's identity.

Ms. Gerritsen has created another eminently readable, intrinsically suspenseful tale.  We learn the details of the case along with Rizzoli and Isles, and feel the same frustrations that they must upon realizing that they need to know just one more thing...

Fans of Tess Gerritsen's crime-solving team will love this book; newcomers need not worry about jumping in mid-series, although after reading it, they will certainly want to start from the beginning.



Please drop by Crime Fiction Collective, where Tess Gerritsen is  guest blogging today.



FTC Full Disclosure: Many thanks to the publisher, who sent me a copy of the book for review purposes.

Just finished reading...

In the Guise of Mercy by Wendy Hornsby.

As one of his last requests, Maggie's late husband detective Mike Flint asked her to find out what happened in one of his cold cases. A young gang member, Jesus Ramon, who also happened to be one of Mike's informants, simply vanished one day after Mike dropped him off. Everyone assumed that Jesus, who was an addict and a small-scale pusher, had died of an overdose or been killed in a gang disagreement and the body quietly disposed of.

But Maggie is determined to fulfill Mike's wish, to give her search some credibility, she decides to make it the focus of her next television special. Delving into Mike's files and talking to his old colleagues, Maggie realizes she's onto something bigger than she expected when someone breaks into her house.

The descriptions of documentary filmmaking and the grittier side of Los Angeles are wonderful, and Hornsby is an amazing writer. It's good to see her (and Maggie) again.