Synopsis/blurb….
If you love
psychological thrillers, discover a new novel today which will have you gripped
from start to finish!
Family. Secrets.
Murder.
Newly promoted DI
Kate Fletcher has reluctantly returned to her home town after a twenty-year
absence and a recent divorce. The
discovery of a child’s body near the estate where Kate grew up has her rushing
back to Thorpe – a place of bad memories and closed mouths.
As her team
investigate the murder, they keep hitting dead ends. The community is reluctant
to reopen old wounds and retell old stories.
But Kate’s history refuses to stay buried.
Then another child
disappears…
Can Kate solve the
case and right the wrongs from her past?
A gripping
suspenseful thriller full of twists and turns. Heleyne Hammersley is the author
of Forgotten and Fracture.
A police procedural for me to get my teeth into here with
Heleyne Hammersley’s Closer to Home.
Verdict? I really enjoyed it.
Our setting is a town called Thorpe in South Yorkshire,
which back in the 80s was a die-hard mining community. We have a seven year-old
girl who had gone missing and whose body has just been found at an abandoned
quarry and the police are now involved. Our main focus is DI Kate Fletcher.
Fletcher has old ties to the town, having grown up there at the height of the
strike. She’s a reluctant returnee, with less than fond recollections of the
place.
Hammersley flip-flops the narrative, with a few chapters set
in the 80s at the time of the miner’s strike and we learn why Fletcher was happy
to leave. Her father was in a different job and different union to the majority
of the men-folk in the town and as a consequence was still working, when most
other families were suffering extreme hardship. Kate and her sister became
targets at school for the bullies and her father relocated elsewhere to remove
the girl’s from a poisonous environment. Thirty years on, there’s folk with
long memories who still find it difficult to give her the time of day despite a
child’s life being on the line.
I might have enjoyed a few more flashbacks in the narrative
as the discontent and rancour of a time of great social and political strife –
Thatcher vs Scargill – offers great material for an author.
Anyway, back to 2015 – there’s a murderer to find. Fast
forward a bit and a second child has disappeared. Also found murdered. Fletcher
and her team have to pull their fingers out and find the killer before the situation
gets any worse.
I liked the presentation of the investigation, with the
difficult family interviews and the detection of the lies and partial truths
from one of the witnesses and the use of a computer expert, digging into the
pasts of those involved and the local history which came to light. I enjoyed
Kate Fletcher’s tenacity and doggedness and her willingness to pursue a lead
when she was being told her focus was mis-directed.
Overall, lots to like – pace, setting, plot, a bit of a dual
narrative, a bit of a history lesson, a decent main character and support cast,
a logical investigation and a believable outcome.
4.5 from 5
Heleyne Hammersley has two previous books to her name –
Forgotten and Fracture.
Read in October, 2017
Published - 2017
Page count - 262
Source - review copy from publisher Bloodhound Books (cheers Sarah)
Format - Kindle
Sounds good. Val McDermid's A Darker Domain is a really good book connected to the miners' strike.
ReplyDeletePaul cheers. Not sure if I have that one among my McDermid stash, I'll have a look.
DeleteThis does sound like a good read, Col. When it's done well, the use of two timelines can be really effective. And I like the use of the miners' strike as a context. As you say, lots of interesting material there for a story.
ReplyDeleteMargot, I really liked this one on a couple of levels. It was an interesting time in the UK, not least because I was just turning into adulthood myself and forming lots of opinions on things.
DeleteThis sounds very good, Col. I like police procedurals, and the flashbacks to the 80s sound appealing too.
ReplyDeleteTracy, I think you might like this one.
DeleteCol, for some reason I like novels set in the backdrop of mining and mining communities, even if this one is so directly. Perhaps, it has to do with my liking for Westerns.
ReplyDeletePrashant, I'd forgotten that mining provided the back-drop to many Westerns.
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