Suddenly at Home

December 14, 2015
Set in August, 1917, Ison’s solid 13th historical (after 2014’s Hardcastle’s Quartet) takes irascible Det. Insp. Ernest Hardcastle and his long-suffering assistant, Det. Sgt. Charles Marriott, to Hampshire, where 16-year-old Daisy Salter’s strangled corpse has been found in a field by farmer Joshua Blunden. The London policemen soon learn that Daisy was suspected of being light-fingered and consequently had trouble holding on to a job. She was also sexually active, and the autopsy reveals that she was pregnant. As the investigation follows predictable lines, the pair probe those who may have gotten her with child, including students at a local boarding school and a suspicious itinerant whom Blunden once caught in flagrante with the dead girl. En route to the fairly clued solution, Ison makes the most of the contrast between Marriott’s cynical responses to Hardcastle’s magisterial pronouncements on the art of detection as well as the wide-eyed awe of a young and callow local constable.

A police duo investigating a dead man with no past can't trust the two people who seem to know the most about the crime.DCI Harry Brock and DS Dave Poole, called in to investigate the shooting death of a man in an upscale apartment in the North Sheen neighborhood of London, find almost nothing to investigate. Apart from the body of a man they identify as Richard Cooper, the apartment is devoid of human touches, almost as if it were a hotel suite rather than someone's home. At the scene, Brock and Poole question Dennis Jones, the friend who found the body. According to Dennis, Richard feared for his life, though Dennis has no idea why, and he appears suspiciously distant from the whole scene while simultaneously sunk in his own anxiety. Poole, who can't resist calling his bluff on the facts, isn't impressed by the roundabout answers Dennis provides. Meanwhile, Brock pursues information from another lead, Cooper's neighbor Lydia Maxwell, who first called the police. Though Brock and Poole are suspicious of both the interviewees, they can't find evidence that either was closely enough connected to Cooper to want him dead. The case stalls until a tiny detail sends Brock and colleague Kate Ebdon to Belgium and down a rabbit hole of possibilities. If only Ison (Reckless Endangerment, 2014, etc.) could keep from introducing every female character as a potential love interest for Brock. Witty repartee rules in this procedural, though some of it may require a British-slang dictionary. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.