The Carrier

November 24, 2014
A labyrinthine plot and thoroughly unlikable characters hamper Hannah’s eighth Sgt. Charlie Zailer and Det. Constable Simon Waterhouse mystery (after 2013’s Kind of Cruel). Since Charlie is no longer a member of CID, due to a disastrous previous case, only Simon can officially investigate the murder of Francine Breary, by all accounts a horrible person, whose husband confessed to the killing but doesn’t know why. Simon and Charlie bicker constantly about the “Don’t-Know-Why Killer,” exchanges that are grating rather than endearing. Readers familiar with Hannah’s narrative style may latch on more easily than a new audience—Charlie and Simon’s police work is told in the third person but intermixed with a first-person account from the viewpoint of a mysterious woman. Either way, it’s difficult to become invested in a case populated nearly exclusively by unpleasant people.

November 15, 2014
The smothering of a supremely unlikable woman provokes a conspiracy, a false confession, a hysterical outburst and round upon round of sifting through the evidence by DC Simon Waterhouse and his wife, DS Charlie Zailer (Kind of Cruel, 2013, etc.).Francine Breary was no prize even before the stroke that left her unable to move or speak. She'd taken accountant Tim Breary away from Gaby Struthers, the brilliant, wealthy tech developer he loved, and persuaded him to marry her, then proceeded to make his life miserable. So it's no wonder Tim has confessed to her murder, adding parenthetically that he doesn't know why he did it. Every detail of his confession is backed up by the other residents of The Dower House-former caregiver Kerry Jose; her husband, Daniel; Francine's caregiver, Lauren Cookson; and Lauren's brutal husband, Jason. But Gaby, stranded overnight in Dusseldorf with an obnoxious stranger who turns out to be Lauren, hears her unwanted companion insist that Tim is being sent to his death for a murder he didn't commit-then sees her escape into the night before Gaby can question her further. Lauren's outburst throws new light on the man Charlie, watching from the sidelines, has dubbed the Don't Know Why Killer but raises a host of uncomfortable new questions which are meat and drink to Hannah (The Orphan Choir, 2014, etc.). Before the curtain finally comes down, Simon will have heard unwelcome revelations from his boss' daughter, questioned Gaby about who assaulted her moments after she walked out on her live-in lover, and contemplated a second body cooling in the morgue. Hannah bores down deep into her tiny cast's secret lives, then still deeper, pausing along the way to cite or reprint a dozen poems, some of them clues, some not. Fans will love the endlessly knotty complications; those unable to commit their full attention to the problem at hand may well quit in exhaustion before the denouement.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2014

In the latest Zailor and Waterhouse mystery (after 2013's Kind of Cruel), Hannah dissects the complexities of loyalty. Tim Breary is happy to confess to the murder of his wife, Francine, and, even to supply evidence to the police. He just won't give them a motive. Meanwhile, brilliant inventor Gaby Struthers is stranded in Germany for the night with a horrifyingly provincial young woman, Lauren. In the midst of her xenophobic non sequiturs, Lauren lets slip something about an innocent man going to prison. Gaby's analytical mind and sense of ethics won't let that stand, especially when she finds out the man is Tim, her former lover. But why would Tim confess so readily? And why would his closest friends corroborate his guilt? Hannah simply overstuffs the story this time around. Letters to Francine by her closest "friends" are the most successful devices, but the multitude of narrators and flimsy reasoning throughout deplete their strength. The psychological aspects of the crime are intriguing, but Zailor and Waterhouse slow the whole thing down with office politics and loose threads. VERDICT Readers new to the series will be lost, but those familiar with the players might be happier. [See Prepub Alert, 7/28/14.]--Liza Oldham, Beverly, MA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2014
Tim Breary, called the Don't Know Why Killer, is confounding police. He's confessed to smothering his wife, Francine, who was bedridden and unable to move or talk after a stroke, and his story is corroborated exactly by the four other people in the house at the time: his close friends, Kerry and Dan Jose; Francine's young caregiver, Lauren Cookson; and her handyman husband, Jason. Even though Francine was, by all accounts, a horrible person, and Tim had fallen in love with brilliant techno-entrepreneur Gaby Struthers, his confession doesn't ring true to intuitive Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse, who's initially left out of the loop in the investigation by his widely hated boss, Giles Proust. First-person narrator Gaby, whom Tim had stopped seeing well before Francine was killed, gets pulled into the case, denies Tim's guilt, and wants to save him. Hannah's psychologically dense police procedurals probe at their characters to reveal their inner lives and intentions as few others do, and thisher eighth featuring Waterhouse and his wife, Charlie Zailershows her proficiency by taking interior examinations to new levels. Winner of the 2013 Crime & Thriller British National Book Awards' Crime Thriller of the Year, this is another example of Hannah's mastery of psychological suspense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)