This is the second in a crime thriller series featuring DC Maggie Jamieson. This installment has her returned to Stafford Police Station after a secondment in the Domestic Abuse and Homicide Team (DEAD INSIDE - BOOK #1) that ended the career of the criminal known as The Chopper -- Bill Raven -- who was convicted and now serving life in prison. Back with the team at the Major and Organized Crime Department, she finds that Raven has suddenly claimed his innocence in the death and dismemberment cases and may now be released. In addition, she's being accused of coercing testimony. Of course she's livid as she knows she had him dead to rights, but his solicitor has filed an appeal. Before that can get off the ground, a bag of body parts is found in a bin and the female is identified as Lorraine Rugman, the woman Bill Raven had claimed killing in what he is now calling a confession drug from him during a drug induced psychosis. Soon, two other body bags are found and, with Raven behind bars, some think that he may be innocent after all. But not Maggie Jamieson who is convinced that he's involved despite forensics showing that the women found were recently killed. So who is killing these women two years after Raven initially claimed he'd done it? It can't be Raven as he's been locked up, coming off heroin, and getting treatment from the prison psychologist. Now, it's up to Maggie and the rest of the team to find the real killer and tie Raven to the crimes. NO SPOILERS.
This was straight-forward police procedural and the narrative moves between different points of view as the case is worked. I didn't find myself becoming particularly attached or interested in any of them as all are fairly one-dimensional. A disconnect occurs because, although Maggie is a DC, it seems like she leads the others around almost taking charge of the case and everyone just lets her. There is very little about anyone's personal lives in the story, but Maggie's bisexuality is mentioned as almost an aside with nothing ever coming of any romance within. The DI allows Maggie a lot of leeway and eventually the case is solved and it's proved that Maggie was right about her theories of course and not much of a surprise. It all ends rather quickly without much explanation of the relationship between Raven and the killer. I'm over him so I hope we're done with all that and can move on to something more interesting hinted at by the cliffhanger ending. All in all, there was just nothing much new here to separate this from the standard detective series so I truly hope that, in future books, Maggie becomes more three-dimensional. I will definitely want to read #3 to see.
Thank you to NetGalley and One More Chapter (HarperCollins Publishers) for this e-book ARC to read and review.
This is the second in the series and has different characters to the first so could possibly be read out of order or as a standalone. I don't recommend that.
Genre - police procedural and crime thriller
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