Dead to me
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Average rating3
15
Ratings1
Average rating3
"A riveting, sharply observed and thoroughly modern police procedural featuring a stellar but unlikely female dectective team, perfect for fans of Tess Gerritsen and Deborah Crombie Detective Constable Janet Scott is subtle and reliable, a diplomatic thinker with a wry sense of humor. She's put in the time and seen it all, but has no desire for the boss's job--she loves her own too much. Rachel Bailey couldn't be more different--she's energetic, impulsive, and ambitious, and has just been transferred to the Manchester murder squad. Their commander thinks Rachel's intuition could make her a great cop, but has reservations about her shoot-first-think-later approach, so she partners her with Janet. At first, the match seems to have been made somewhere considerably lower than heaven, but when a teenage girl is found brutally murdered, stabbed to death in her squalid flat on a North Manchester housing estate, both detectives realize they must work together to stop a vicious killer. But the case quickly becomes more complicated than it seems, fraught with dangers neither woman could see coming. Eager to make her mark, Rachel's reckless pursuit of the truth could threaten her future on the squad. And an unexpected turn in the investigation forces Janet to face personal demons. No matter the cost, both must race to stop a vicious killer before it's too late in this riveting novel from award-winning author Cath Staincliffe. "It's always exciting to see a writer get better and better, and Cath Staincliffe is doing just that."--Val McDermid"--
Reviews with the most likes.
Cath Staincliffe, award-winning novelist and TV writer, brings her talent to an adaptation of ITV's Scott & Bailey, telling the story behind DC Rachel Bailey's introduction to the MIT and planting seeds for stories that would shape the first two series (at least – that's all I've seen, maybe there's more).
Staincliffe captured the voice of the characters so well – I could see them all playing clearly in my mind. The case was nothing spectacular – wasn't the death of a major political figure, a celebrity, or anything particularly gory. It was a simple stabbing of a poor drug addict, yet this team throws everything at the case. Precisely the way that Harry Bosch or John Ceepak would – I'd like to think that actual police work as hard as their fictional counterparts, hopefully that's true.
There are plenty of suspects, plenty of red herrings, and plenty of obstacles to Rachel becoming a member of the team and earning her new boss' trust (and plenty of times Rachel shot herself in the foot in the process of both). It's not all about Rachel (as viewers know), but she's the entry point here. There's plenty about DC Janet Scott and their boss, DCI Gill Murray – both professionally and personally.
I liked the parallelism of Janet trying her best with her kids and the victim's mother repeatedly saying the same. It's not a revolutionary idea by any measure, but Staincliffe handled it deftly. Later on, she did the same when Gill deals with a minor emergency involving her teenage son. Rachel doesn't have a motherhood parallel, hers is on the other end. All of it, really well done and none of these get to the point of beating a dead horse.
This was a solid read, strong enough to justify reading a second book in the series (even without the show) – and likely more by this author, just to see what she can do with her own characters.
