For Sal Kilkenny, private investigator, things are going well, a couple of investigations on the go is how she likes it. Hired by Roger Pickering to find his sister Jenny, who has not been heard of since she left for Keel University in the September of 1976, and asked by the local council to take on some surveillance work on reported racial abuse, against an Asian family.
Tracing missing persons, is relatively straight forward, except that in this case, Sal cannot speak to Jenny’s parents, her father is dead, and according to Roger, since Jenny left for University when Roger was eight, his mother will not have her name mentioned, or, indeed any topic concerning her. Roger is prompted to find his sister, not only for himself, but for his mother who is now terminally ill, and he hopes that they can be reconciled before she dies. I enjoyed following the investigation as Sal traces and meets with old friends of Jenny’s, but the trail is far from straight forward. Then the surveillance work, takes a harrowing turn, sadly one that is all too topical at the present time.
Sal has a young daughter Maddy and shares a house with a guy called Ray who has a young son. The arrangement of house sharing has distinct advantages for Sal. She is able to live in a larger house than she could afford on her own, she has someone to share the parenting duties of collecting and delivering her child to school, plus Maddy has a handy play mate. In all a very satisfactory arrangement, until one of them gets a relationship!
I enjoyed following both investigations, and the way that Cath Staincliff handled the juggling of Sal’s personal life as a working single mother with a job that has unsociable hours, was very well portrayed.
Julia Franklin did a good job with the characters, I liked her voice and will
look forward to listening to other books read by her.
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Lizzie Hayes Other books in the series are, Go Not Gently, Looking for Trouble,
Dead Wrong, and Towers of Silence.