Gillard's Sting

January 18, 2021
At the start of Duffy’s convoluted 22nd mystery featuring Ingrid Langley, mystery novelist and mother of five, and her husband, Patrick Gillard, a former agent for Britain’s National Crime Agency and now an insurance fraud investigator in Somerset (after 2019’s Stone Cold, Stone Dead), they’re visited by Patrick’s old NCA boss, who persuades Patrick to quietly investigate the disappearance of John Brinkley, a recently retired senior Metropolitan Police officer believed to have been in the pay of London mobsters. Ingrid and Patrick head to Brinkley’s last known address, where black magic wizards enter the mix of mobsters, corrupt cops, and simple thugs. In their quest to find Brinkley, the couple run into a host of acquaintances whose extensive backstories slow the action. Despite Patrick’s advanced age and a prosthetic leg, he manages to come out on top none the worse for wear in fights with multiple villains. Some readers may feel it’s time for Patrick and Ingrid to retire and devote more time to their children, who are merely window dressing here. This is not the place to start for newcomers.

December 15, 2020
A London crime-solving duo gets pulled into some freakish and dangerous events. Patrick Gillard resigned from the National Crime Agency after he and his wife, Ingrid, were targeted by criminals. Ingrid continues to write crime novels and Patrick's taken a job as an insurance investigator. But a man with his many talents is never far from the eyes of his old law enforcement colleagues. It's no surprise when his former NCA boss, Michael Greenway, shows up with Patrick's gun and offers him a contract to find John Brinkley, a missing senior cop accused of dishonesty. This seemingly simple task soon leads the couple into a thorny thicket of mobsters, bent cops, and murder. Inside one of the several houses Brinkley owns they find a woman they assume is Brinkley's wife, Sarah. She claims he has a girlfriend, that mobsters are after him, and that she couldn't care less. Patrick doesn't think Brinkley's dishonest, but he's puzzled by many aspects of the case and suspicious of everyone, even Greenway. Several police departments and MI5 have their hands in the investigation. When Sarah's found with her throat cut, the stakes are raised along with the danger level. Can the Gillards find the common thread that will unravel the complex conspiracy before they become its next victims? Fans will find this action-packed installment easier to follow than newcomers, who may want to begin at the beginning.

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September 15, 2018
Readers might want to refresh their memories of Dust to Dust (2016), to which this new entry in the Patrick Gillard and Ingrid Langley series is a direct sequel. Julian Hardy, the man who orchestrated the murder of Patrick's boss at the National Crime Agency, is out of prison and living under an assumed surname, Mannering. MI5 has been keeping tabs on Mannering, and its agents have come to believe that he is planning some sort of criminal activity, and that Patrick might be in some sort of danger. When Mannering turns up dead, Patrick and his wife, Ingrid, are determined to find out who's responsible and what sort of criminal enterprise the deceased was hoping to orchestrate. Meanwhile, and perhaps not entirely unrelated to the Mannering case, some people are trying to force Patrick's mother out of her home, and they're using some heavy-handed techniques. This is another strong entry in the Gillard-Langley series, and it's sure to be a real treat for series fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)