Shed No Tears

October 5, 2020
The discovery in a remote area of Cambridgeshire of a missing woman’s remains reignites a cold case, in British author Frear’s middling third novel featuring Det. Constable Cat Kinsella (after 2019’s Stone Cold Heart). In 2012, in what was dubbed the Roommate Case, the confessed killer, Christopher Masters, lured four women to his house by advertising a room for rent and killed three of them. The fourth, Holly Kemp, escaped and went missing. Six years later, Kinsella and her partner, Det. Sgt. Luigi Parnell investigate Kemp’s murder now that her body’s been found. Because Kemp was killed in a different manner than the other victims, and her body was found miles away from Masters’s house, the partners suspect that someone else murdered her. Parnell visits the only witness to the roommate case, but he finds her retelling unconvincing. Kinsella and Parnell’s interview with a gangster, who falsely denies knowing Kemp, is also unproductive. Eventually, the pieces come together at the cumbersome conclusion. Kinsella remains frustratingly underdeveloped beyond her family’s history of ties to organized crime, and the narrative can be confusing at times. Frear has done better. Agent: Eugenie Furniss, 42MP.