Detective Morgan Brookes is back in the 8th instalment of this series.
One of the things I like about this series is the fact that the lead character is a DC and as such is unburdened by the management of an investigation. She is a cog in a machine that relies on all of the cogs working together towards the same cause, but only managing one line of the investigation.
The isolation of working that single thread, and taking her thoughts and findings back to the regular team meetings is what sets her apart.
Morgan is a huge crime fan, loving true crime documentaries and books, as well as some fictional crime.
She has a way of seeing the hidden meaning, the motivation for a crime, before most of her colleagues. It doesn’t mean she’s always right, but her hypothesis are fascinating, and if they are dispelled still aid the investigation by narrowing down the lines of inquiry.
In this book she’s the first investigator on the scene of a serious house fire. A family of three is dead inside, but not in one of the burned out rooms, in fact there isn’t even any smoke damage in the room in which they are found.
The fact that they are all sitting at the dining table, with plastic bags over their heads, and each with a hand missing, only adds to the intrigue.
Morgan and the rest of the team are soon embroiled in an investigation in a tight knit community within a small town.
Nobody can be ruled out, but he closer the investigation gets to identifying the killer the harder it’s seems to be.
I loved this book. The prologue chapter telegraphs the motive for the killing, but the link, and the identity, of the killer is cleverly hidden right up till the last couple of chapters
Morgan is a great character, as are the main recurring characters. It’s her addiction to crime documentaries and books that originally got me hooked, after all it could have been me that was being written about, but the books and the stories now demand my attention.
This is one of those series I now look out for. As soon as one’s available they go straight to the top of my to-be-read list and become my next read.
They never disappoint.
Pages: 265. Publisher: Bookouture. Publishing Date: 19th December 2022
In the interest of being transparent I must admit to having a vested interest in this book. I gave advice to Helen Phifer on the Fire Scene and the involvement of the Fire Service during the investigation.
I’d like to thank Helen for the generous mention in the acknowledgements section and the choice of name for the Brigade Fire Investigator in the book.
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