‘Come To Harm’ by Judith Cutler

Published by Joffe Books,
8 May 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-83526567-3 (PB)
Originally Published 31 October 2005 as
Life Sentence.

Chief Superintendent Fran Harman is asked to investigate a cold case involving an unknown woman who was found badly beaten by the roadside who has remained in a coma ever since. No one came forward to identify the woman and the original investigation could find no clues to her identity. Her only visitor in the intervening two years is the man who found her. The hospital’s medical team have applied to remove her life support and Fran’s boss asks her to take a fresh look in order to reassure the courts that every attempt to solve the case has been made before that happens.

To make life even more difficult for Fran, a young girl is kidnapped. Another senior officer is brought in to the team to deal with the kidnap case. He is openly antagonistic to Fran to the point of commandeering all her team leaving her to attempt to solve her case with the support of only one part-time police constable.      

Judith Cutler provides not only an unusual, highly intricate and intriguing plot that keeps the reader guessing until the final pages but also creates an untypical protagonist. Fran is run ragged attempting to balance the demands of a stressful job based in Maidstone and those of her aged difficult parents living on the other side of the country in Devon who she visits every weekend who then have a never-ending list of jobs they require her to do. As her parents’ condition continues to decline and they refuse all the outside help Fran arranges for them, she feels obligated by a sense of duty to consider early retirement from a job she loves and excels at to look after them. To make matters worse, her move to Devon will put paid to her one chance of happiness with the man with whom she is falling in love. How can any romance survive when the two of them are separated by two hundred miles?

An excellent read, I can thoroughly recommend.
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Reviewer: Judith Cranswick  

Judith Cutler was born in the Black Country, just outside Birmingham, later moving to the Birmingham suburb of Harborne. Judith started writing while she was at the then Oldbury Grammar School, winning the Critical Quarterly Short Story prize with the second story she wrote. She subsequently read English at university. It was an attack of chickenpox caught from her son that kick-started her writing career. One way of dealing with the itch was to hold a pencil in one hand, a block of paper in the other - and so she wrote her first novel. This eventually appeared in a much-revised version as Coming Alive, published by Severn House. Judith has eight series. The first two featured amateur sleuth Sophie Rivers (10 books) and Detective Sergeant Kate Power (6 Books). Then came Josie Wells, a middle-aged woman with a quick tongue, and a love of good food, there are two books, The Food Detective and The Chinese Takeout. The Lina Townsend books are set in the world of antiques and there are seven books in this series. There are three books featuring Tobias Campion set in the Regency period, and her series featuring Chief Superintendent Fran Harman (6 books), and Jodie Welsh, Rector’s wife and amateur sleuth. Her more recently a series feature a head teacher Jane Cowan (3 books). Judith has also written three standalone’s Staging Death, Scar Tissue, and Death In Elysium. Her new series is set in Victorian times featuring Matthew Rowsley. Death’s Long Shadow is the third book in this series. 

 http://www.judithcutler.com

Judith Cranswick was born and brought up in Norwich. Apart from writing, Judith’s great passions are travel and history. Both have influenced her two series of mystery novels. Tour Manager, Fiona Mason takes coach parties throughout Europe, and historian Aunt Jessica is the guest lecturer accompanying tour groups visiting more exotic destinations aided by her nephew Harry. Her published novels also include several award-winning standalone psychological thrillers. She wrote her first novel (now languishing in the back of a drawer somewhere) when her two children were toddlers, but there was little time for writing when she returned to her teaching career. Now retired, she is able to indulge her love of writing and has begun a life of crime! ‘Writers are told to write what they know about, but I can assure you, I've never committed a murder. I'm an ex-convent school headmistress for goodness sake!’ Her most recent book is Passage to Greenland