The Suffering of Strangers

January 15, 2018
Ramsey’s riveting ninth mystery featuring Det. Chief Insp. Colin Anderson and Det. Insp. Winifred “Freddie” Costello (after 2017’s Standing Still) finds their Glasgow investigative team broken up: Anderson has been assigned to the cold case unit, Costello to domestic abuse; other officers are relegated to desk-bound jobs. Costello investigates the kidnapping of a six-week-old baby, snatched from his mother’s car while she nipped into a shop. The child was replaced by another baby, who has Down’s syndrome. Meanwhile, Anderson reopens a rape case, the victim of which is a close friend. Ramsay gracefully braids together the two investigations, each of which adds information that expands the possibilities of the other. The snarky banter between Costello and practically everyone she encounters is amusing and increasingly endearing. She propels the narrative, pulling Anderson and the other team members along in her wake. Fans of contemporary British police procedurals will be more than satisfied. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory & Co. (U.K.).

March 1, 2018

When a new mother leaves her child in the car while she runs into the store, the unthinkable happens: when she returns, the infant is gone and a different baby, one with Down syndrome, has been left in his place. Glasgow DI Costello begins to investigate and soon realizes that the crime shows signs of having been carefully planned rather than one of opportunity. This leads Costello to set about finding and questioning the mother's friends and acquaintances. At the same time, DCI Colin Anderson is investigating a cold case, convinced that there was a pattern in past attacks, including one that involves an old acquaintance. Ramsay's ninth "Anderson and Costello" mystery (after Standing Still) continues the well-developed and engaging characterization found in her previous books, and the plot proceeds logically through the intricacies of the case. She draws in readers and skillfully provides more than one suspect as Costello searches for the truth. VERDICT Mystery and suspense fans will be thrilled to discover this British procedural series, with this latest addition hard to put down.--Linda Oliver, MLIS, Colorado Springs

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2018
A masterly pair of Glasgow sleuths tackle two cases that become one.DI Costello is trying to get over the sting of a case in which she was unfairly blamed for the missteps of others. Her former partner, DCI Colin Anderson, is stuck reviewing cold cases. Costello gets called out when a desperate mother whose child never stops crying returns from a quick run into a store to find her car with little Sholto inside stolen. The car is soon found, but Sholto has been replaced by a boy with Down syndrome. When the woman whose old rape case Anderson was looking into dies, the powers that be ask Anderson to see if he can convince his old college girlfriend Sally Logan, another victim of an unsolved rape, to go on television and appeal for people to speak out about victims of violent and sexual crime. Costello and social worker Deliana Despande, digging into Sholto's disappearance, learn to their surprise that quite a few babies have recently vanished, leaving their mothers to get on with their lives--all except for Orla Sheridan, whose dead body is found in a lake. The last time Orla was recorded on CCTV was in a narrow alley near the building where Anderson's old friend Sally and her husband, Dr. Andrew Braithwaite, have their businesses. There seems to be nowhere she and a pregnant woman also caught on video could have gone. Anderson renews his friendship with Sally and Andrew while Costello and her team do everything possible to discover what happened to Orla. Old lovers, cold cases, and mistakes that cast long shadows all play a part in cases so complex that solving any one of them leaves a great deal still to be discovered.As usual, Ramsay (Standing Still, 2017, etc.) provides enough creepy characters and weird doings to give her two protagonists fits and produce one of the strangest procedurals of the year.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from February 1, 2018
In what may well be her best book yet in the Anderson and Costello cop series, Ramsay offers up a cracking plot, disturbing and unexpected twists, flawed yet compelling characters, and an unsettling conclusion in this story about all the bad things that can happen to children. As the story begins, Costello is called to investigate the kidnapping of a six-week-old baby. She's still feeling traumatized by the Bernadette Kissel case, which saw her play a key role in convicting a woman who starved, beat, and ultimately killed her child. The last thing Costello wants is another kiddie case, but if she must take it on, she'd like nothing better than to have the support of her old partner, Colin Anderson, and the rest of their team. However, Colin's now sidelined in the cold-case unit, and the other two team members have been assigned to desk jobs, so it seems Costello is on her own. Before long, though, it emerges that Costello's baby kidnapping case has links to Anderson's latest cold casea decades-old kidnapping and rape. The further they move into the dual investigations, the more horrors they discover. A taut, shattering, mesmerizing page-turner that definitely kicks this series up several notches.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)