Let the dead speak by Jane Casey

Publication date: 24 August 2017

Book Description:

When eighteen-year-old Chloe Emery returns to her West London home she finds her mother missing, the house covered in blood. Everything points to murder, except for one thing: there’s no sign of the body.

London detective Maeve Kerrigan and the homicide team turn their attention to the neighbours. The ultra-religious Norrises are acting suspiciously; their teenage daughter and Chloe Emery definitely have something to hide. Then there’s William Turner, once accused of stabbing a schoolmate and the neighborhood’s favorite criminal. Is he merely a scapegoat, or is there more behind the charismatic façade?

As a body fails to materialize, Maeve must piece together a patchwork of testimonies and accusations. Who is lying, and who is not? And soon Maeve starts to realize that not only will the answer lead to Kate Emery, but more lives may hang in the balance.

With Let the Dead Speak, Jane Casey returns with another taut, richly drawn novel that will grip readers from the opening pages to the stunning conclusion.

My thoughts:

With hindsight, I am probably not best placed to be reviewing this book as I have found out since receiving it that it is book 7 in a series featuring detectives Kerrigan & Derwent and I am very late to the party.

The story in itself I thought was good, with a cast of characters not all that large but sufficient to provide several suspects, all with a credible motive for murder.  Although strictly speaking without a body we are subtly reminded throughout that it may not even be a murder enquiry.  The dynamic between Kerrigan and her colleagues is interesting but I did feel that I needed to read previous books to really understand why they interacted the way they did and why the new addition to the team was treated with little respect or trust at times.  This however is my failing and in no way a reflection of the writer’s ability.  I would recommend that anyone considering this book reads the previous titles in order to get the most out of it.

The plot weaves back and forth between suspects, drip feeding new information which made me change my opinion of each character in turn.  The Norris family start as good Samaritans, change to be prime suspects, then villains with their treatment of their neighbours which was far from neighbourly - although at times Eleanor Norris made me want to give her a good shake.  A couple of the characters I thought were rather stereotypical but not enough to spoil a good tale.  Nothing prepared me for some of the revelations towards the end of the story though and my predictions of “whodunnit” (and why) at the start of the book were way off track. Clever writing and plenty of red herrings made sure of that, and I will definitely be seeking out the previous books in the series so I can untangle the detectives’ back story.

My thanks to Netgalley and Minotaur books for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.