Wrong Way Home

A cold case is reopened as new DNA technologies provide new leads into a crime from the past. This however pushes the killer[s] to cover their tracks, so the killing starts again, but now the perpetrator[s] is [or are] aware. It appears that that despite advances in forensic analysis, the case is far from clear.

The story is told from the perspectives of DI Grace Fisher’s investigation and also from a young journalist who is intrigued by the event as it occurred the day he was born, and a ‘true crime’ podcaster.

It appears that the East Londoner’s favoured seaside retreat, Southend-on-Sea in Essex has some darkness beneath the candyfloss and amusement arcades.

Twenty-five years earlier, Southend (pronounced Sarf-End) suffered a terrible series of rapes. And a murder that remains unsolved is one that appears linked to the sex-crimes. The victim’s body was discovered close by the remains of a local resort that was engulfed in a fire at the same time of the murder.

This is a solidly-written police procedural, with an elegant - and at times prescient - plotted structure. The pace is sustained by snappy and terse dialogue, especially when DI Grace Fisher ruffles some feathers among her colleagues, when it appears that the original investigation may have been lacking.

What elevates this police procedural/crime thriller from many others on our shelves, is the heavy focus on solving the crime for the victims’ sake, as opposed to just ‘watching the Detectives’ - so the reader gets a solid sense of empathy about the victim[s] as people, rather than a statistic on a police squad-room chart.

Though the fourth book in a series, it can easily be read as a standalone and I would recommend this to anyone who wants a good strong police procedural, but one that is striated with deep empathy for the victims.