Kill My Darling

January 16, 2012
In Harrod-Eagles’s well-plotted 14th mystery featuring London Det. Insp. Bill Slider (after 2011’s Body Line), suspicion falls on three men after the body of missing paleontologist Melanie Hunter turns up in a wooded area of Ruislip. According to all reports, Mel was a lovely girl, so it’s unclear why anyone would want to kill her. Slowly, the alibis of her live-in boyfriend, estate agent Scott Hibbert; her well-meaning but strict stepfather, Ian Wiseman; and her ex-con neighbor, Mr. Fitton, unravel, leaving Slider and his detectives with more questions than answers. The author imbues each of her detectives with a distinct personality, and evokes a real sense of urgency as the action moves deftly from suspect to suspect as well as from clue to clue, though the heavy use of British slang may distract some American readers.

February 15, 2012
If everyone so loved Melanie, how come she's lying dead in the park? Everyone who knew Melanie admired her, at least until DI Bill Slider began asking around. Then it turns out that her mum's recent relationship with her had turned tetchy. Her stepdad may have slapped her around. Her live-in boyfriend was furious that she kept refusing his marriage proposals. And her downstairs neighbor, prickly Mr. Fitton, declines to comment on drinking with her at the pub. Was he obsessed with her and guilty of murdering her, just as he killed his own wife for her sexual misconduct? Slider and his coppers at London's Shepherd's Bush nick can't puzzle out why Melanie left her house with only her keys and a Chinese takeaway and wound up dead shortly thereafter. The stepdad, the boyfriend and the neighbor all have alibis that eventually explode. Slider, left to dig into Melanie's past for old traumas, learns that she never recovered from her father's death in a major train collision years before. Putting the pieces of Melanie's life back together brings another suspect to the surface, but a false confession will have to be debunked, a bit of insurance fraud uncovered and a bit of white dog hair used as evidence to reveal what turned poor Melanie into a victim. If you're unlucky enough to be murdered, pray that DI Slider (Body Line, 2011, etc.) is handed your case. And if he ever comes on the marriage market again, get in line for a chance at him.

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March 1, 2012

A female anthropologist vanishes, and Detective Inspector Slider digs out clues and dark secrets in his team's fourth outing (Body Line). [See Prepub Alert, 11/14/11.]

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2012
The always reliable Harrod-Eagles adds another winner to her excellent Bill Slider series. London Detective Inspector Slider's latest case has the intrepid copper trying to solve the murder of Melanie Hunter, a pretty young woman with a sad past and a future that looked bright until she was killed. There are plenty of potential suspects, from the oddball who lived downstairs and who'd served time for killing his wife to Melanie's stepfather, a teacher whose respectable facade covers a brutal nature, to Melanie's boyfriend, a real-estate agent sorely lacking in scruples. Slider is frustrated when the investigation moves at a snail's pace, but even when a light-bulb moment leads to a solution, the case is so full of sadness and tragedy that resolution brings little satisfaction. While Harrod-Eagles conjures up an absorbing police procedural, it's her ability to capture the foibles of her characters, to make them come alive, to show the playfulness and passion of human nature, and to evoke the reader's empathy that makes her books stand out. Highly recommended for all readers of police procedurals.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)