Perfect Sins--A Mystery

October 6, 2014
British author Bannister’s well-constructed sequel to 2013’s Deadly Virtues finds Gabriel Ash, who was once involved in tracking hijacked munitions for national security, still searching for his wife and children, who were kidnapped by Somali pirates four years earlier. A long stay in a psychiatric ward has changed Ash, but it hasn’t kept him from pursuing leads to his missing family. Hazel Best, a police constable who befriended Ash in Deadly Virtues, introduces him to Lord Peregrine Byrfield and David Sperrin, who’s conducting an archeological survey on Byrfield’s estate north of London. When Sperrin unearths a relatively recent crude grave containing a young boy’s skeleton, Best declares it a crime scene. Rumors fly, and the subsequent police investigation uncovers secrets that affect both the Sperrin and the Byrfield families. Readers will look forward to seeing more of Bannister’s finely drawn leads—fragile but determined Ash and good-hearted, impetuous Best—especially after the shocking cliffhanger ending. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory & Company (U.K.).

November 1, 2014
A second case-call it a case and a fraction-for Constable Hazel Best and Gabriel Ash, the much-tried man she befriended in Deadly Virtues (2013).Gabriel's career with national security investigating Somali pirates came to an abrupt end, along with his peace of mind, when his wife and their sons vanished, presumably captured or killed on the orders of the people he was investigating. Now his only goal in life is to find them, if they're still alive. But his inquiries among weapons manufacturers like Stephen Graves move slowly, so he's available along with Hazel to help out when Lord Peregrine "Pete" Byrfield, who employs Hazel's father as a handyman, begins an investigation of some possible burial mounds on his estate. After he's surveyed potential locations for Pete, archaeologist David Sperrin digs into one especially promising site and does indeed find human bones. But they're a young boy's, and they're only 30 years old. Somehow Fred Best persuades his daughter that the remains may be those of David's brother Jamie, who was reportedly carried off by his father to Ireland many years ago, at the same time that Pete is persuading himself that his own parents may have borne a son before him and then killed him-an awkward contrivance that pays off in a breathless series of complications and teasing alternatives involving Pete's and David's thoroughly unlikable mothers. The mystery of the buried child is solved early on, leaving veteran Bannister 50 pages to return to the question of who came close to killing Gabriel and Hazel and why. The briefer framing case is touching but otherwise unsatisfying. But the main course of old bones is a humdinger.

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December 1, 2014

Former British government agent Gabriel Ash and police constable Hazel Best are back in this sequel to Deadly Virtues. Ash pursues a lead that's given him some hope that his sons, who were abducted by Somali pirates, may still be alive, while Best investigates a burial mound at an archaeological site that isn't so ancient.

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November 1, 2014
The disappearance of his wife and children drove former government agent Gabriel Ash mad. After observing a crime (in Deadly Virtues, 2013), he was befriended by police constable Hazel Best and slowly reentered society. Now a senior police officer's claim that Ash's family is still alive relights a hope that already nearly destroyed him once. As Ash looks for evidence that his work investigating Somali hijackings could lead him back to his family, Hazel is caught up in the investigation of a decades-old child's corpse found at a local archaeological site. Hazel grew up with the families around the estate where the body was found. Could one of them have buried a little boy and kept it a secret for nearly 30 years? As one old crime comes to a slow and sad resolution, another emerges with an urgency that will have readers demanding the next book in the series. Ash is so genuine in his neediness that his friendship with Hazel never feels particularly one-sided. Two compelling story lines for two compelling characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)