12 April 2012.
ISBN: 978-0-330-53993-7(PB)
This is a debut novel by Mari Hannah who
sets it in Northumbria. This setting has a great validity in a nicely
understated way. The writer uses her real-life experience as a probation
officer and that of her partner as a murder detective extremely effectively producing
a palpable air of reality. Indeed, the gritty reality at some points is almost
too much to bear!
The Senior Investigating Officer on a brutal murder case is Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels—on her first case in that role. She carries considerable baggage, as all detectives seem to, in relation to her private affairs and concerning an even more brutal double murder that she was unable to solve about a year earlier,
The interaction of police work by a team intersecting other
current police cases is beautifully shown, though the number of characters does
keep the reader on their toes. The tension is maintained throughout
particularly when it becomes obvious to us that Kate is being watched. She
pursues a ruthless killer despite all distractions as complicated events are
unrolled. The novel uses features of the digital age very well.
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Reviewer: Jennifer S Palmer
Mari
Hannah was born in London. She became
a writer after her career as a Probation Officer was cut short following
an assault on duty. She began using a computer because it was too painful to
write with a pen. Ironically, the idea that she might one day become
a writer then began to form in her head. She tried
different forms of writing before settling on prose and spent several
years scriptwriting. She then turned her attention to the BBC, pitching a
television serial based on characters in her then unfinished debut crime novel The Murder Wall. After completing
the TV script, she went back to the book she had started years before but
somehow never thought she’d finish. She now lives in a small
Northumberland village with her partner, a former murder detective. In 2010,
she won the Northern Writers' Award.
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