Two Faced

May 1, 2018
Could the lowlifes who nearly killed DCI Elaine Hope in her first case (Souls of Men, 2017) be back to finish the job?The Kensington district of London is beyond the reach of most murderers. So the appearance of a mutilated corpse outside an upscale flat is doubly outrageous, especially since a tattoo he bears seems to link him to Anton Srecko, the Serbian gangster whose lasting enmity Elaine guaranteed when she killed his brother, Nilo, who beat and stabbed and raped her and tried to do more. The only upper-class links new DS Simon Costello and DC Philip Bull can find in the new case are witnesses' accounts of a barefoot blonde fleeing the scene. The blonde is indeed more posh than they can imagine: She's Lady Fiona Paternoster, the aristocratic gallery owner who'd been brought to the scene by Jacko O'Rourke, the lover of her husband, the Metropolitan Police's Cmdr. Jonathan Hughes. As Elaine, who's warned off the case in no uncertain terms, works secretly with Costello and Bull to identify the fleeing blonde, Ashworth raises a host of questions. What was she doing at the scene in the first place? Why did the killer allow her to escape? What connection does Jonny Hughes have to the murder? Who is the victim, and why was he killed? Were the shadowy forces behind his execution members of IRG, Srecko's Serbian gang, or duly constituted officers of the law? And which of the many officers Elaine works with are actually working against her? Some of these questions turn out not to be very important; others, frustratingly, never get answered. Instead, Ashworth focuses on the uncomfortable parallels between the detective and her suspect, both of them victims of an awful lot of men behaving badly.Not much mystery, not much suspense, but a mountain of sadness and suspicion on behalf of a pair of hard-used women too tough to whine themselves.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2018
DCI Elaine Hope is on conditional return to the London Metropolitan Police after months spent recovering from a suspect's brutal attack and sexual assault. She killed the man who attacked her, but she can't rest until she finds out who else was involved that night. Several of the officers who used to report to her supply information about ongoing investigations, jeopardizing their own careers. Hope is also testing the loyalty of Doctor Peter Willend, who, up until her attack, had been a promising romantic partner. Now a job offer back in the States has him wondering how long it will be until the woman he loves can learn to trust again. The series debut, Souls of Men (2017), was compared to Deborah Crombie's series featuring Gemma James and to other British police procedurals with female leads. That parallel remains, of course, but there is also something of Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander in Elaine Hope?both are determined women who have faced the worst humankind has to offer but won't stop fighting for good. A series to watch.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)