Aisling would do anything for her family – but can she protect a killer?
I had about three false starts with this book. Having read all her other books in the series when I won them in a competition on Twitter, I was intrigued to see what was next. I would read a bit, then a blog tour would come along or an urgent bit of bookpost would fall through the door and I would have to set it aside. I was so glad to finally get going with it again on holiday and it didn’t take me long to race through to the finish. The story gained both momentum and tension from about chapter four onwards. We’re back with Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheen’s team as the uncertainty of his private life is overshadowed by a terrible case and a man nicknamed the Bonfire Killer. He has killed two women already and the police have very little to go on. Then single mum and game developer Aisling, puts her DNA on an ancestry site. She’s thrilled to find a match, but that piece of her she felt was missing might come with some serious baggage – starting with an interview with CID. Aisling’s DNA is a match to the crime scene and possibly the Bonfire Killer himself, so the police have their eye on her two sons, Ethan and Finn, as well as her long lost father. There are secrets in this family, not limited to her missing parent. Will she be willing to unearth a painful past to prevent someone else suffering a painful future?
Aisling is an interesting and unexpected central character, with a life that isn’t everything it seems. She has gone to great lengths to avoid her past and she isn’t the only one in the family. Her father, Dara Cooley, went missing years before. As the team try to crack the case, they break into smaller working groups to find Dara Cooley, chase up the DNA and interview suspects that arise, and investigate a stud farm where a horse has been taken and killed, then burned on a pyre. Could it be linked to the case? The detectives spend time with the farmer and his two sons, trying to establish who would want to hurt their mare, Merivel. There are so many blind alleys and red herrings, but they have to be followed just in case one of them leads to a breakthrough. I loved the complications around an Irishwoman named Anneka Foley and her potential relationship to the case. One of Aisling’s sons is in a band, that one of the killer’s victims had a fascination with and that’s before we get to the exploration of Aisling’s own teenage years. I was suspicious, but loved Aisling’s loyalty to her sons. Her ‘first love’ story was so relatable and digging into the past can stir up a lot of feelings, especially when an unexpected visitor turns up. She’s unusual, a gamer who likes to play at home with her sons, but is also quietly very successful as a developer in her own right. She’s been tough and dedicated to her boys. Can she come to terms with her past and open herself up to a different future?
The team are on form, but I particularly loved the subplot around Juliette who is receiving unwanted attention from an old boyfriend. At a couple of crime scenes there have been markers that he might be around again: her favourite hot coffee and a waterproof jacket left on the bonnet of her car on a cold wet night. We see the strain she’s under, but she still does her job. It’s a subplot that seemed to have petered out but now returns with deadly consequences. This was a story I’ll love to see concluded in the next book. Then there’ Jonah’s private life, where trying to do the right thing seems to have backfired spectacularly. How does he extricate himself from this without causing further harm? Will the right path still be open to him when he does? With a fascinating background of Ireland’s poverty and the ways in which people struggled with a restrictive religious society, this is a fascinating thriller with so many different aspects to it. Gytha Lodge brings all these seemingly disparate strands together and successfully resolves most of them, only leaving us with one cliffhanger. But it is a humdinger of a cliffhanger! All of this as well as a atmosphere and tension you could cut with a knife, this is another brilliant read from a consummate crime writer.
Meet the Author
Gytha Lodge is a multi-award-winning playwright, novelist and writer for video games and screen. She is also a single parent who blogs about the ridiculousness of bringing up a mega-nerd small boy.
She has a profound addiction to tea, crosswords and awful puns. She studied English at Cambridge, where she became known quite quickly for her brand of twisty, dark yet entertaining drama. She later took the Creative Writing MA at UEA.
Her debut crime novel, She Lies in Wait, has been published by Penguin Random House in the US and UK, and has also been translated into 12 other languages. It became an international bestseller in 2019, and was a Richard and Judy book club pick, as well as a Sunday Times and New York Times crime pick.
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