Hadn't read the first in the series which I think was a mistake as there was obviously a great back story going on. Despite that I really enjoyed this book. A mother has been murdered and her disabled daughter left to die, but who would be that cruel?
A very thought provoking book, especially when you find out who the perpetrator is, there are no easy answers or conclusions. Quite a slow, detailed investigation, this is not an all action crime novel but all the better for it.

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Dawn Prentice was already known to the Peterborough Hate Crimes Unit.
The previous summer she had logged a number of calls detailing the harassment she and her severely disabled teenage daughter were undergoing. Now she is dead – stabbed to death whilst Holly Prentice has been left to starve upstairs. DS Ferreira, only recently back serving on the force after being severely injured in the line of duty, had met with Dawn that summer. Was she negligent in not taking Dawn’s accusations more seriously? Did the murderer even know that Holly was helpless upstairs while her mother bled to death?
Whilst Ferreira battles her demons, determined to prove she’s up to the frontline, DI Zigic is drawn into conflict with an official seemingly resolved to hide the truth about one of his main suspects. Can either officer unpick the truth about mother and daughter, and bring their killer to justice?

This is the third book in the Zigic and Ferreira series. I haven't read either of the previous book...but if this is anything to go by, then I will definitely be doing so in the future.

There is plenty to like in this book. Let me touch on just two of those things:

* Characters - one thing I noticed right from the start was the quality of the writing when it came to describing her characters. Not just the main characters, but all of those peripheral ones that make a mystery novel, in particular, better than average. There are a few who do this really well...and Eva Dolan is one of them. We get characters of every stripe - from the petty, to the jealous, to the well-intentioned, to the downright nasty. But we also get quite possibly the best combination of detectives I have read in a long time. Zigic and Ferreira are a cohesive and well-suited pair. At no stage did it feel like one was trying to overtake the other, there was always the sense that both were important to the investigation. And that pleased me...

* Plots - there is a real skill, I think, in balancing multiple narratives while building tension and suspense in a mystery novel. Dolan does that really well here as well. All the characters have a story of their own, a story that could lead them to being suspects in this case. To juggle all those stories and keep the multiples arcs from getting tangles up was something I also appreciated. Sometimes, when reading a mystery novel, there always seems to be a case of plots getting twisted and then find the reader trying to untangle them - which is a real turnoff. No such problem here.

There are many other good things going on here but, for me, characters and plot are THE most important things in a mystery novel. And this one succeeds in both of these.


Paul
ARH

Full review to follow.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers.

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This is the 3rd book in a series which I didn't realise when I started but it still works well as a standalone novel. Not having read the earlier books I don't know anything about what has happened to the 2 main police characters - where did her injuries come from - I need to find out more. Not the most fast paced of police stories but it kept me interested all the way through.