‘Isolation Ward’ by Martine Bailey

Published by Allison & Busby,
17 April 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-7490-3099-5  (HB)

It’s 1983. It’s taken Manchester United two attempts to win the Cup Final, and Margaret Thatcher just one to win a decisive General Election victory. And Lorraine Quick, bass player in an aspiring rock band, has had to pull out of a career-making tour of Germany to travel to Yorkshire for her day job. Lorraine is qualified in psychometric testing and has been tasked with training a management team at a new state-of-the-art top-security hospital housing dangerous criminals.

She’s hardly had time to unpack when a body is found – and it’s Kevin Crossley a member of the management team she’s supposed to be training. Enter Detective Sergeant Diaz, an all too familiar figure from a previous case Lorraine was involved in.

The other members of the management team don’t make it easy for her. Doctor Voss, in charge of the new facility is hard to read: charming on the outside but obviously hiding his own agenda. Enid Finn the treasurer has an alcohol problem. And Brian Ogden, in charge of the nursing staff, is more like the worst kind of bullying prison warder, at least on the surface.

Meanwhile, four young people are about to cause havoc in the remains of the old hospital, which is slowly being demolished nearby. Oona Finn, Enid’s daughter, fancies herself as a white witch. Tommo Ogden, Brian’s son, takes after his father. They both work at the new hospital, Oona as a ward clerk, Tommo as a nurse. Krish is a whizz with electronics, and Ella... no one knows much about Ella, she just turned up a few weeks ago, but Oona has taken pity on her and given her somewhere to stay.

Lorraine is faced with a near-impossible task: moulding three damaged souls into an effective management team as the police swarm over the hospital in pursuit of a violent killer – and they’re not exactly in short supply in that environment.

In Martine Bailey’s second psychological thriller she shows once more that she knows how to build a sinister atmosphere, and place acutely observed characters in it to great effect. The strands of the plot twist and turn like the labyrinth of tunnels under the old hospital; the characters, major and minor, live and breathe, with the flaws and emotions that make them real. Lorraine herself has a hard time balancing the personal and the professional; as well as a doomed attraction between her and DS Diaz, there’s plenty going on at home to distract her.

Who killed Kevin Crossley is the big question at the centre of the story – but there’s a good deal else going on too, which makes for a gripping and complex tale with edge-of-the-seat moments balanced by a quieter, more reflective approach. Martine Bailey is a writer to watch, and Lorraine Quick is an intriguing protagonist. I look forward to seeing where they go next.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Martine Bailey entered cookery contest with no idea it would lead to a life-changing obsession with French cuisine. As an amateur cook, Martine won the Merchant Gourmet Recipe Challenge and was a former UK Dessert Champion, cooking at Le Meurice in Paris. Inspired by eighteenth-century household books of recipes, An Appetite for Violets invites readers to feast on the past as a sharp-witted young cook is taken on a mysterious trip to Italy. In pursuit of authenticity Martine studied with food historian Ivan Day and experienced Georgian food and fashion at firsthand with an historic re-enactment society. Martine lives in Cheshire, England and Auckland, New Zealand. She is married with one son.  

http://www.martinebailey.com/

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house