It’s four years on since Helen Powers, a scene-of-crime officer with the West Midlands police, became involved with the case of dead teenager Rose Buchanan - a case which resulted in the end of her career. She is now working as a portrait photographer. On a routine assignment to meet a new client she is attacked and nearly drowned. With the loss of her handbag the local police put it down to a mugging, and she accepts this. Oddly though she is unable to contact Freyer Stevens, the client she had been due to meet on that nearly fateful evening.
A few days later, returning home from a party, she is again the victim of an assault, and she fears that these events are linked and personal, not random. But why and who? Could they be linked to her past as a SOCO? This time, she doesn’t ring the local police but Detective Inspector Joe Stratton who she had known and liked when she had worked at the Steelhouse Lane police dept.
Although the story is set in the present, there are flashbacks to the events of four years before, in particular dealing with Helen’s meeting and affair with Detective Inspector Adam Roscoe.
The blurb on the cover of this book says “love, guilt, shame, deceit, greed and murder, this novel has it all”. I totally concur with this, for in investigating who is trying to harm her, Helen not only uncovers the truth surrounding the event that ended her career four years ago - leading her to question her own judgements - but also follows a trail that leads to family secrets that reach far into the past. An emotional journey.
A stunning first book with a terrific climax. Highly Recommended.
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Lizzie Hayes