🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
I had to sit and take a beat after closing this book, my head still spinning after the fabulous ending.
What a terrific read. This book — a “maybe-murder” mystery— is a true slow burn, written with skill, and impeccable class, from the very first pages, all the way through to that dazzling finish.
Spanning two time periods separated by a span of thirty years, we are introduced to the 1990 world of our main protagonist, DI Martha Allen, a serious and sometimes obsessive London-based police inspector, who is dealing with the emotionally charged disappearance of a five-month old baby named Bella Carpenter. The case is complex, may or may not involve a heinous murder, and seems to center on a strange and beautiful woman named Nell Beatty.
Thirty years later and Martha is now a Detective Superintendent when she is unexpectedly drawn into the original baby Bella case again. This time, Martha will find herself travelling across the country to Bristol, where she will refuse to give the case up, until she has solved every shred of mystery still attached to it.
Reminiscent of a somewhat less verbose Elizabeth George (one of this reader’s all time favourite mystery writers), this is an immersive and detailed police procedural, written with such finesse that literally everything that happens makes perfect sense, — all leads are organized and followed through in a process that feels, well, real and sensible, with all of it adding up to what can only be seen as a tidy, tight, and a terrifically readable read.
Peopled with characters, every single one of them, who radiate with such a perfect degree of authenticity, in this book we are welcomed into lives, filled with experiences, hardships and yearnings that ring so true, with consequences so recognizable, that we the reader, will absolutely feel along with each character.
I adored this book, and cannot wait to read more of what I hope to be an upcoming series.
A great big thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.
