In Vino Veritas

January 4, 2016
British author Turnbull’s engrossing fifth police procedural featuring Det. Chief Insp. Harry Vicary (after 2014’s Denial of Murder) opens quietly enough when Andrew “Big Andy” Cragg, a minor gang member—really a gofer or errand boy—drops into a London pub. Over a pint, Cragg drunkenly confides to a stranger that he once helped dispose of a murder victim in a neighborhood south of the Thames. The stranger turns out to be an undercover Scotland Yard detective, who seizes Cragg’s beer glass as evidence as soon as he walks out of the pub. A young woman’s body is indeed found in the spot Cragg designated, sending Vicary and his team to their missing person files. One thing slowly leads to another, and eventually the squad painstakingly analyzes 10-year-old clues. Turnbull unobtrusively slips details of the officers’ private lives into the action. A lot of people do a daunting amount of work on the way to the satisfying conclusion.

January 1, 2016
A tipsy conversation leads DI Harry Vicary's team (Denial of Murder, 2015, etc.) to reopen a cold case. Working undercover, DC Tom Ainsclough doesn't look like Old Bill. So you could hardly blame Big Andy Cragg for cornering him in a local boozer and unloading a tale of carrying a body years ago out to Malpas Road, New Cross, to be buried in a shallow grave. But when Ainsclough carries the news back to the nick, Vicary decides to follow up on Cragg's story. Next thing you know, DS Victor Swannell has six uniformed constables and a black and white springer spaniel out on Malpas Road looking for remains. They find them soon enough in an allotment run by Tony Vere, on a parcel Vere's records show was farmed by "a geezer called Hill" who never seemed to grow anything and gave it up after a few months. Meantime, Cragg admits being offered the job of corpse disposal by "a geezer called 'Chinese Geordie Davy.' " Ainsclough and Penny Yewdall are able to identify the body as that of Victoria Keynes, who disappeared years before after walking out on her husband, Elliot Woodhuyse. Woodhuyse turns out to be a dark horse, with plenty of disposable income with no clear source. But connecting Woodhuyse to Hill and Davy, and Victoria's skeletal remains to any of the aforementioned geezers, takes patience, persistence, and lots of shoe leather. Turnbull's fast-paced procedural should appeal to fans of the dogged-determination puzzler.

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January 1, 2016
When an undercover cop visiting a bar hears a drunken criminal confess that he witnessed the murder of a young woman 10 years ago and helped bury her body in a garden plot in south London, the cop figures he'd better report the confession to his bosses at Scotland Yard. The small-time crook, Big Andy Cragg, is persuaded to turn Queen's witness and eventually leads the police to where the victim was buried. CID detective Harry Vicary is put in charge of the case and, before long, is drawn into a complex and horrifying world where money is king, violence is rife, and life is cheap. After teasing out a long string of clues, Vicary and his team find a tragic victim, a merciless killer, and a repugnant motive. An inventive plot, smart writing, unexpected twists, and a satisfying ending make this a satisfying read for fans of hard-boiled fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)