Judas Horse

January 18, 2021
La Plante’s so-so sequel to 2020’s Buried starts more strongly than it finishes. Like many a maverick cop, Det. Sgt. Jack Warr, of the Metropolitan Police, has a “reputation for doggedly following his instincts, regardless of how dubious that course of action seemed to everyone else.” Because he can think like a crook, his boss tasks him with catching a burglar who has terrorized a London neighborhood for five years. Warr’s quick apprehension of the thief leads to a similar assignment after the police in the Cotswolds ask for help. Their beat has been plagued for years by burglars targeting wealthy residents, whose desire for privacy makes them uncooperative. Soon after Warr arrives in the area, a married couple are hit by the burglars, who use a laser to break into their home’s safe and victimize their autistic adult son. More violence ups the ante. Nothing about Warr, who’s so consumed by work that he forgets the naming ceremony for his first child, breaks any molds. The psychological depth La Plante brought to her Jane Tennison books is absent in this routine police procedural.

March 1, 2021
A rising star in the London Metropolitan Police, DS Jack Warr (introduced in Buried, 2020) volunteers to consult on a serial-burglary case in bucolic Chipping Norton, where the burglars have shown an unusually sadistic bent, unnecessarily killing a dog and viciously beating an autistic man. Wielding charm, Jack bonds easily with the local investigative team, and they soon turn up a lead: the victims all used the same vegetable delivery service. Although the well-liked owner, Charlotte Miles, doesn't match eyewitness accounts, Jack is certain she's involved, perhaps unwittingly. When the Oxford police force ties another string of burglaries in their jurisdiction to the death of a John Doe in Chipping Norton, the gang is somehow alerted and ups the stakes by murdering a witness. Jack channels his gangster father's gift of manipulation and his stepfather's loyalty to the greater good in an undercover bid to flush out the gang's ringleader. The burglars' cunning and their escalating brutality lends breathless suspense, but most compelling is Jack's dawning recognition that he's at home in both of his fathers' worlds.

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