Review by Booklist Review
Former DCI Monika Paniatowski has retired from the police, and the team she worked so hard to build has scattered. But when Kate, one of the team, asks for Monika's help after being accused of murder, Monika agrees to step in. She knows that it's illegal to interfere in a police matter, but Monika can't let her friend down. Kate is accused of killing Andrew Lofthouse, a businessman in the English village of Whitebridge. The day of Lofthouse's murder, Kate had an ugly encounter with him at the battered-women's shelter she runs (and where Lofthouse's wife fled to escape his brutality). The encounter so upset Kate that she nearly exposed her darkest secret: she's a sado-masochist who visits S & M clubs, although never in Whitebridge. But that fateful day she went to a local club and was horrified to see Lofthouse there. He threatened her, she left with him, and the next day, his body was discovered. Another fine entry in Spencer's cleverly written, often violent, yet also surprisingly heartwarming series, this one will appeal to readers looking for a complex police procedural with plenty of human interest.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
British author Spencer's superior 15th and final outing for Lancashire Det. Chief Insp. Monika Paniatowski (after 2021's Poison) makes the most of a classic procedural trope--the veteran copper wondering whether long-standing trust in a colleague has been misplaced. In 1985, Paniatowski is forced to retire after decades on the job following an administrative reorganization. Her unsought retirement is busy, with her time spent helping several charitable causes and giving lectures at schools. Then in 2000, her old detective sergeant, Kate Meadows, now a warden at a battered women's shelter, becomes the prime suspect in the murder of Andrew Lofthouse, a man viewed as the possible next mayor of Whitebridge. Lofthouse, a wife abuser, was found hanging from a bannister. Paniatowski agrees to help Meadows, but comes to question whether she really knows her friend, who "gave the impression that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but those who crossed her quickly learned that she had a gaze intent enough to strip away skin." Spencer has made Paniatowski, originally a supporting player in another series, a memorable and complex creation in her own right. Fans of Lynda La Plante's Jane Tennison will be pleased. (Jan.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Spencer bids farewell to her best-known franchise. It's been years since retired DCI Monika Paniatowski has assembled her team in the public bar of the Drum and Monkey, and time has treated each member with a characteristically heavy hand. Jack Crane, rendered unfit for service when a suspect he was subduing gouged out his eye, teaches literature at the University of Central Lancashire. Colin Beresford, father of five, works a gentleman's farm with his wife. Monika spends her days keeping company with Zubrowka Polish vodka, having given up her dream of becoming a grandmother. Her daughter, Louisa, has become Chief Superintendent Rutter, wildly successful but childless; her son Thomas is a Catholic priest; and his twin brother, Philip, is in a detention center awaiting trial for assault. Only Kate Meadows has done something noteworthy, leaving the force to become director of Overcroft House, a shelter for battered women. After years of finding pleasure in pain as Zelda, mistress of the night, she now protects women whose pain is anything but consensual. The murder of the husband of one of the shelter's residents by someone skilled in the art of S & M presents one of the knottiest of Spencer's patented heads-I-win, tails-you-lose dilemmas. If Kate's alter ego is discovered, she'll lose her post, but if the crime goes unsolved, the shelter may close. Spencer's dialogue is crisp as ever: Monika notes wryly that Beresford's home-brewed beer "tastes like a diabetic tomcat has peed on a dead hedgehog." But readers will most likely anticipate missing Monika's matchless gift for solving the unsolvable by means unimaginable even as they cheer her final victory. Spencer gives Monika Paniatowski the send-off she richly deserves. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
