Book two of the DCI Liz Field series.
All emergency services suffer from regular nuisance callers. Most are malicious false alarms, sometimes they are a cry for help, but they are always taken, and responded to. Sometimes that response can be a bit slower than they would expect, the calls being prioritised, and known false callers get put to the bottom of the queue.
But what happens when those callers really need help. The time they are calling wolf because there is actually a wolf there.
Anne was one of those callers. Her regular cry for help was that “he” was going to burn the house down and kill her inside it.
So when one night another call comes in, to her house being on fire, the nearest Police Officer takes his time in responding.
When he does get there he finds the house well alight and goes inside to rescue the old lady most police officers in the area have come to know.
His life is saved when a neighbour pulls his unconscious body out of the house.
And so begins a complex investigation which takes more than a few unexpected, and thoroughly compelling twists.
DCI Liz Field is appointed SIO but her team is reduced to help cover another team who are investigating the murder of a high profile activist who had been shot on her own doorstep.
Fields investigation soon uncovers the real identity of Anne, the victim in the house fire had changed names, and location, following the conviction of her husband who had previously assaulted her.
Could this be the reason for the murder, he had always said he would kill her and her son.
Who is the son, and where is he. The police officers who had grown to know her had no knowledge of her previous life.
This is the basis of a fantastic story.
As with the previous book No Safe Place, the story revolves around Field, and the two or three other key players in the plot.
As the story progresses the slow drip of clues finally builds up and I eventually realised who some of the characters really were. I had a good idea of who might be the murderer, but when it was revealed I was still surprised.
It’s been a long time since I have read books so well plotted. Hannah Brennan hides things in plain sight so that when the reveal is made I couldn’t help thinking to myself “how did I not pick up on that”
It helps that I love DCI Field. She is about as realistic as it comes, and I find empathy with her every time she makes a decision.
What really struck me about this book is how well it is researched. I recently read and reviewed a book in which the main character was a Fire Investigator. I criticised the research for that book as it was factually and procedurally incorrect. And that was with the FIre Investigator as the main character.
In this book the Fire Investigator has a bit part, an important part in the story but still a small part. The realism in the scene setting, and the procedural aspects, in this book are really very good, and there is absolutely no comparison between the two. This one is far better than the other.
For me, as a retired Fire Investigator, that makes a hell of a difference.
I can’t wait for book three to be published in November 2026, in fact I preordered it as soon as I finished this one.
Pages: 446. Publisher: Avon. Audiobook length: 10 hours 13 minutes. Narrator: Rachel Atkins
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