Billed as book one of the Detective Rutherford Barnes series, and hopefully it’s going to be a long series.
Two uniform PC’s are out at night looking for the person responsible for a series of burglaries. They come across a home which has been broken into and chase down the man they see outside.
The home belongs to one of the officers, Harriet Holden, a message scrawled on the wall is a direct threat.
The man is taken into custody and yells another threat “I know who you’re f….ing. No one’s going to miss you. You can jump into the fire but you’ll never be free..
Whilst the burglaries suspect is in custody Holden goes missing, and is later found murdered and mutilated.
Her partner on the night, the arresting officer, a young PC, Rutherford Barnes, is drafted into CID to help with the case, and is soon embroiled in a case that has many twist and turns.
The story is set in 2001 and it’s the perfect time period to start this series.
Technology is starting to race ahead but the era still has DNA in its earliest use, mobile phone tech at it’s basics, and policing still suffering some of the biases the police suffered before forces started to address them in the 90’s
Barnes is a strong character with a firm moral compass, and he needs it for this case.
Set on the south coast a criminal is forging his own “empire”. People come under his influence, people who should know better.
Barnes trusts people, but that naïvety soon gets eroded and a stronger willed copper develops
This is a great story. At over 450 pages is a long read by todays standards but, as they say, time flies when you’re enjoying yourself, and this book seemed to fly by when I was reading it.
Pages: 451. Published by: Joffe Books. Publishing date: 23/6/2022
nigeladamsbookworm 