A Walk with the Dead

February 11, 2013
Two cases drive Spencer’s solid sixth 1970s Lancashire mystery featuring Det. Chief Insp. Monika Paniatowski (after 2012’s Lambs to the Slaughter). When 13-year-old Jill Harris disappears after a family wedding in Whitebridge that Monika attended, the girl’s mother phones Monika to ask for her help. The next day, furtive young lovers discover Jill’s corpse hidden in the bushes of a town park, and Monika and her team go into action. Meanwhile, the Home Office assigns Chief Constable George Baxter to review a suicide, but he soon has difficulties with the defensive staff of the Yorkshire prison where an inmate hanged himself in his cell the month before. The courses of both investigations nicely mix deduction and procedure as they verge on the predictable but surprising link between the two. Series fans will appreciate such melodramatic personal moments as the time the chief constable’s wife becomes jealous after George returns to Whitebridge to see Monika instead of her.

March 1, 2013
The disappearance of a young girl launches an investigation that poses a host of challenges for DCI Monika Paniatowski (Lambs to the Slaughter, 2012, etc.). In her flounced pink dress, Jill Harris couldn't make plainer how unhappy she is at her Aunt Vanessa's wedding. But Monika is distracted by Liz Duffy, the new police surgeon, before she can talk to the pouting teenager, who reminds her a bit of her own Louisa. The next day, when Jill's mother reports her daughter missing, she bitterly regrets the missed chance. Now the comparison between Jill and Louisa can't be missed, since Louisa was kidnapped briefly only months before. With Chief Constable George Baxter off in Yorkshire investigating the prison suicide of a sex offender, Monika gets assigned the difficult case despite its personal resonance. Knowing that Baxter is likely to pull her off as soon as he returns, she wants to close it fast. Once Jill's body is found, she presses her team--DI Colin Beresford, DS Kate Meadows and DC Jack Crane--to make an arrest. They nick Bill Horrocks, whose hatred of lesbians is a motive for killing the same-sex-oriented teen. But the discovery of Margaret Hudson, a teenager killed in nearly the same spot as Jill, frees Horrocks from the nick. While Baxter interviews the recalcitrant staff of HM Dunston Prison about the string of violent attacks that preceded Jeremy Templar's death, Monika grows increasingly worried that her failure to resolve this sensitive case may pose a threat to her career. Another solid outing for Charlie Woodend's worthy successor, whose baggage, like her striking European nose, makes her all the more appealing.

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March 1, 2013

DCI Monika Paniatowski returns in her sixth procedural (after Lambs to the Slaughter) and finds herself emotionally torn up when young girl's death strikes a bit too close to home. [See Prepub Alert, 10/08/12.]

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2013
DCI Monika Paniatowski is a skilled detective who keeps her team motivated but still shows flashes of humanizing vulnerability. This time out, the case brings a terrible sense of d'j vu as a 13-year-old girl goes missing in the same way that Monika's beloved adopted daughter, Louisa, did two months earlier. But while Louisa's case had a happy ending, the story for Jill Harris ends tragically when she is found dead. Monika feels the pressure, compounded by the fact that her boss (and former lover), Chief Constable George Baxter, is away investigating a suicide in a Yorkshire prison. Soon there's another victim, with no traces left behind. Spencer is expert at weaving human foibles and flaws, personal insecurities, and individual tragedies with authentic details of daily life as a copper in 1960s Britain. The result? A gripping thriller that will please a broad range of readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)