Carole Tyrrell worked in the theatre for nearly 10 years and was always fascinating by the way death and the supernatural formed many of the greatest and most enduring works. She has read crime fiction for many years and enjoys the broad range of the genre.
Twenty-five years ago a hidden observer saw two people fighting on a staircase at St Paul’s Cathedral. It’s a wet, cold night and only one of them will survive. The other will fall to his death and, despite a police investigation, no one will be brought to justice.
Now, Detective Sam Shephard is returning to the Dunedin police force after six months maternity leave. Amelia, the baby, will be off to daycare in a week’s time and Sam knows that it will take time for her to adjust to her working routine again.
But her manager, and nemesis, DI Greg Johns wants her back in the saddle right away and gives her a cold case from 1999 to investigate. It’s the unsolved death of Reverend Mark Freeman whose body was found at the bottom of a cathedral staircase. For DI Johns, it’s unfinished family business as Reverend Freeman was his second wife, Felicity’s, father. And to increase the pressure on Sam, the Reverend’s widow Yvonne, has terminal cancer and Greg wants the murder to be finally solved to give her closure.
So, in between managing being a new mum, and missing Amelia, Sam begins work. She reviews the original investigation and revisits the murder scene.
The name of a former youth worker, Mel Blythe, who lost her job at the time of the murder comes up. She wasn’t popular and is now trying to obtain financial assistance from the church. A suspect, Aaron Cox, was never charged and moved to another town with another name. Other people connected to the church were never interviewed and one tells Sam that Reverend Freeman could be hard on his children, Callum and Felicity. Aaron makes a cryptic remark which sends Sam off on a new line of investigation before Mel is found murdered in her room at a local boarding house. Now there is another murder to solve and both Sam and her colleague, DS Smith, are really feeling the heat. All families have secrets but how far is someone prepared to go to keep them quiet and why was Mel being paid substantial blackmail money? Sam begins to look more closely at family members and the secret that has destroyed their lives….
For once, the publishers blurb lived up to the hype. This book was definitely a one sitting read! It is the 6th in the Sam Shephard series but this was my first acquaintance with her. It would have made a great stand alone but I was soon immersed in Sam’s world as she juggles the new addition to the family with Paul, her partner, and also the pressures of an investigation and a demanding manager. I liked the emphasis of the vast bulk of the building with all its workers neatly fitting with it. Sam is a convincing, likeable character who is good at her job and I enjoyed the book’s atmosphere from the dark Cathedral to the burden of the family dynamics and motives.
A gripping plot from start to finish with one character prepared to take all of the blame entirely to save someone else and there was a sense of tragedy in the death of another character within the Cathedrals’ precincts. The family mystery weighs heavy on them all. But then the author adroitly pulled the rug out from under the reader as Sam unmasks the real murderer.
