Jennie
Redhead is an Oxford graduate who used to be a police detective
until she was forced to leave. Now she works as a private
investigator and, when a distraught woman begs her to find
her daughter she accepts the case. Mary Corbet is oddly convinced
that her daughter is dead, although the police merely think
she has run away. The only clue as to what might have happened
is a quote from an obscure 17th century poem.
This book is set in 1974, a recent but very different time
from our own. Apart from the lack of technology, I did not
feel that I was reading about another time. It is also written
in the present tense, which jarred initially, but I was instantly
sucked into what is a very readable and gripping tale. Ms
Spencer has a talent for making her characters interesting
and believable, even though many of them have more than a
little of the cliché about them. Part of this serves
to get the message across of a place where wealth and privilege
will buy anything, but where dogged determination might just
tip the scales in your favor. The plot was rather easy to
guess, but there are still surprises. Now the series has been
set up I anticipate subsequent books to be more complex. This
is a dark tale, showing more of the undesirable side of Oxford
than Morse or Lewis, but with a detective it is easy to like
and root for, and ultimately, a feeling of justice done. I
will certainly be looking out for the next in the series.
Reviews
of other titles in this series
A
Shivering Turn #1
Dry Bones
#2
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