The Start of Everything: A Novel
Mistaken identities and damaged people are at the heart of this intense psychological thriller with elements of a police procedural. Told by multiple narrators—victims, perpetrator, and police officers—in times past and present, the novel starts with the search for a woman named Katja, to whom letters have been addressed at Cambridge, then moves to a nearby fen, where a young woman’s body has been found. The latter case is investigated by newly reunited partners DCI Morris Keene and DI Chloe Frohmann, neither of whom is at full strength: Keene is just back from a knife attack that left him physically and psychically wounded, while Frohmann—asked by their boss to keep an eye on Keene—has just discovered she’s pregnant. The two plotlines gradually intertwine, with characters showing few degrees of separation from one another, as multiple deaths occur, none accidental. Winslow’s second novel (after The Whole World, 2010) is compulsively readable with a final twist; a treat especially for fans of Minette Walters and Ruth Rendell. --Michele Leber