Death Comes to Call (DC Tara Thorpe #3) by Clare Chase

DC Tara Thorpe of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary has been assigned to look into a missing person report filed by the brother, Matthew Cope. It seems that the absent artist, Luke Cope, had gone off over a week previously and the situation had not been taken very seriously. When Tara visits Luke's messy house and art studio, she's shown a strange painting -- of a woman in the throes of being strangled. It looks to be the work of a seriously disturbed individual and it sets Tara's spider sense tingling. When it's revealed that the woman in the picture is Freya Cross, Luke's illicit lover, Tara becomes even more concerned. And when that very woman turns up dead in the nearby Paradise Nature Reserve, things really heat up for the constabulary as all hands on deck try to find the truth. Did Luke murder Freya and then vanish to avoid being caught? DI Garstin Blake leads Tara and the rest of the team -- DC Max Dimity and newly promoted DS Megan Maloney -- in a complicated investigation that involves art, heroin and greed. NO SPOILERS.

I really like this series and have read all 3 books in order and I'd recommend that others do the same as each provides some essential background to the development of the characters and their relationships. I enjoy the details of the police procedural and the description of Cambridge, the fens, and the surrounding countryside. I am not quite sure yet how I feel about the characters as both Tara and Blake have some serious flaws and issues that I wish would be resolved and not with some ridiculous or sappy romantic twist that makes her a twit and him a cad. Their whole "thing" needs to just stop and be over and they need to get on with their jobs and leave out all the yearning and whatnot that is affecting their ability to fully function as a team and makes them do stupid stuff. I'm also tired of the "stalker" thing -- seriously, that needs to be finished as well after 3 books and all that police power to figure out who's involved and why. Other than those two things, I'm ready to read more books about Tara and the team and the crime at Cambridge.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the e-book ARC to read and review.

This is #3 in the Tara Thorpe series and books should be read in order.
Genre-labels: police procedural, murder mystery, detective novel