Description from Goodreads:
"Jane Bennett, senior Detective Sergeant for the murder squad at her London police precinct, is having a terrible day. Her boss, Detective Inspector Mike Lockyer, has just returned to work after two weeks on "leave," though Jane knows it was really more like a suspension. He’s still shaken by the loss of a victim in their last murder case, and Jane is still stung that Lockyer didn’t trust her enough to confide in her about the case before it was too late.
But neither of them has the luxury of time to dwell on past grievances. Jane has just received a phone call from a good friend saying that her husband Mark Leech, a retired policeman, has disappeared. When Jane finds dramatic blood splatters in the laundry room, she knows Mark is seriously injured at best, and they don’t have any time to waste. And then the body of a young girl is discovered in a tomb under a London greenway, and police resources are stretched even thinner…until it starts to look like the two cases might be related.
No Place to Die is another spine-tingling mystery with complex, three-dimensional characters from suspense master Clare Donoghue."
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This is the second book in the Mike Lockyer series. I haven't read the first book and although the author did an excellent job on character development and included some of the history, I did feel that I was at a disadvantage and would definitely recommend reading the first novel if you want to know the whole back story and how Lockyer and Bennett got to where they are. Having said that, I still enjoyed this book very much.
It felt realistic to me with believable characters and portrayal of police work from the forensic to the tedious but essential leg-work down to the interrogation of suspects. I must admit to losing it a bit in the middle though when it seemed to get overly procedural but that didn’t last long at all.
The majority of the book is told from DS Bennett’s point of view and I particularly enjoyed the parts devoted to her family life and the struggles she goes through juggling trying to solve murder and spending enough time with her autistic son; this made her more than a one-dimensional character and I really felt for her as she was pulled in different directions.
The snippets from the point of view of a victim and her sense of total terror were expertly transferred to me, the reader, and left me feeling chilled especially as being buried alive is a real fear of mine and one of the reasons why I am going to be cremated!
The whole story was written with good pace which kept my interest from start to finish with the last few chapters being particularly exciting and, cliché I know, edge-of-the-seat reading. I have read a lot of thrillers, mystery, crime, etc., books and can usually guess “whodunnit” quite quickly but must admit that I didn’t guess right this time and I just love it when that happens.
This is more than just a run-of-the-mill police procedural crime thriller and I would recommend it to anyone who are fans of this genre or even those who aren’t but who enjoy a great story.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, Pan Macmillan, for my copy in return for an honest review.
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