One Half Truth

May 1, 2021

It's unusual for Detective Inspector Zigac and Detective Sergeant Mel Ferreira to investigate a shooting in Peterborough, England. Those cases usually involve drugs or gangs; this time, Jordan Radley, a 21-year-old journalism student, has been shot twice in the back. When police discover that all of Jordan's tech devices have been stolen, they have to look into the stories he was investigating. His first national article, about mental illness in men, has recently been published. Jordan cared about the article's subjects, men who lost their jobs when Greenaway Engineering was bought by a foreign company, and he continued to meet with them at their club after the story came out. Police look first at those men, which leads to a helicopter crash, ruled accidental, that kills the owner of Greenaway. One frightened witness leads the investigators to stories of contaminated land for development, and dying workers. That case also traces back to the powerful Greenaway family. As Zigac and Ferreira's boss warns them to stay away from the Greenaways, they wonder if they're on a wild goose chase that's leading them away from the killer. VERDICT After Between Two Evils, this sixth police procedural in Dolan's award-winning series combines current British social issues with a step-by-step investigation. Readers of Deborah Crombie's Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James books may want to try this carefully plotted series.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 31, 2021
The murder of Jordan Radley, a journalism student at Peterborough College, drives British author Dolan’s well-plotted sixth police procedural featuring Detective Inspector Zigic and Det. Sgt. Mel Ferreira (after 2020’s Between Two Evils). The month before, Jordan published his first article, which was about the closing of a Peterborough factory four years earlier and its emotional toll on former employees who belong to a working men’s club. Zigic and Ferreira discover that the article made some club members unhappy and that the factory’s last owner, Marcus Greenaway, sold the factory to a German company that shut it down within weeks. Marcus died in a helicopter crash ruled an accident about the same time, and his brother-in-law, a construction company owner, is now developing the site for housing. The suspense builds as the detectives, despite threats from the chief constable to get off the case, plunge ahead and uncover an extensive web of deceit involving shady deals, corruption, and other killings. This realistic, granular view of a murder investigation and the lives of those affected by it is sure to win Dolan new fans. Agent: Philip Patterson, Marjacq Scripts (U.K.).