Review: Good tight story, engaging protagonist
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 17, 2013
Newly hired Detective Sergeant Kate Redman has worked very hard to distance herself from her upbringing with her drunken, slatternly harridan of a mother. She nonetheless remains fond of her half-sibs (by various fathers), and is glad to help them when she can. When her gifted younger brother Jay shows up at her house with a painting that his tutors think may win a prize, she is glad to see him and hear his news. Jay is currently into hyper-realism in his work, and his painting of a drowned girl on the riverbank looks a bit too much like the crime scenes she deals with professionally for her comfort. He proudly lends her the painting until the show and mounts it over the fireplace in her new house. That night Jay takes her to a club to hear Elodie, his model and member of a folk rock band, perform.When Kate and her partner Olbeck are called to a drowning at the riverbank the next morning, Kate is horrified to see that the body is Elodie's. The girl had not been drowned, but strangled and dumped into the river, from which an early jogger had pulled her out. Kate faces a terrible dilemma; to report Jay's eerily prescient painting to the investigative team or hide it? Jay hadn't come home with her last night, but sent a text that he was crashing with a friend.This short novel, second in a series, is one of the most professional and enjoyable 'e-book only' mysteries I have read. I immediately downloaded the first, Hushabye, and hope the author will write many more Kate Redman stories.