Behind Closed Doors by Kerry Wilkinson

I was not quite ready for this story line after the sort of cliffhanger ending at the conclusion of #6. 

Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel is usually heading up her usual team and they are investigating cases in and around Manchester. Something has happened to Jessica, however, and she's broken and depressed. She hasn't been working and has alienated most of her co-workers as well as Adam, who's meant to be her husband. In an attempt to provide Jessica with some sort of lifeline, DCI Jack Cole offers a job involving a nearby police force who are investigating a sort of reclusive cult. Jessica will go solo into this weird community in an effort to discover what is going on behind the closed doors of the huge old house out in the woods.

Jessica doesn't have to fake being messed up and she's brought quickly into the fold that is dominated by a very creepy trio. Quasi religious, but mostly insulated, the cult has a lot of rules that must be followed. Even though they say that anyone can leave at anytime, there are only two ways out of the huge house -- and those doors are almost always kept locked. As in locked in. Armed with only a cell phone that she must keep hidden, Jessica tries to figure out what may have happened to a young man, found dead, who was known to have lived there right before his death. Jessica has quite an adjustment to the house routines and difficulty in getting the information she wants without being outed. The housemates are not encouraged to ask questions and most are there because life on the outside was unbearable for them. Can she figure out what is going on before they discover who she is?

This isn't as suspenseful or twisty as are the usual stories in this series, but it was well paced and had a different vibe to it. Since Jessica is on her own, the reader misses the other characters that usually are a foil for Jessica's forceful personality. I do hope she recovers now, and returns to her usual form in subsequent books. I know she had a hard time but I hope things will look up for her now and that something happy and good is in store for her! 

Good for me that I have #8 ready to read next, and it will be the third Jessica Daniel in a row I've read, so off I go for more...fingers crossed!