Faith, Fiction, Friends: "In the Key of Death" by Scott Hunter

DCI Brendan Moran is actually retiring from the Thames Valley Police. Nobody, including Moran, can quite believe it, but it’s his retirement party and everyone is celebrating. His love interest Alice is there, too, and things have moved well beyond serious.

The phone rings early the next morning. It’s Moran boss. The police officer taking Moran’s place had a bit too much to drink and was in an accident on the way home. He’s now in the hospital, and the prognosis is grim. And the boss wouldn’t be calling except there’s been a murder and there’s no senior investigating officer to take charge. Might Moran consider coming back to lead the investigation?

Moran does, much to Alice’s anger. The case is a disturbing one. An elderly woman has been found with her hands nailed to her piano. The official cause of death will be determined to be a heart attack brought on by the trauma. Her sister, who discovered the body, the victim’s piano students, and everyone who knew her are shocked; she didn’t have an enemy in the world and was universally loved. And she has been a master pianist.

It would be a Brendan Moran stories without side stories, usually involving the police. There’s Moran’s rapidly deteriorating love life. One of his team witnesses an accidental death and agrees, at least initially, to help cover it up. An old nemesis, a vicious MI-6 agent protected by the government despite her killing two innocent people, makes an unexpected and unwelcome return. And his Number 2 on the team is rather furious at Moran’s return and is doing what he can to undermine him.

Scott Hunter

The investigation will take Moran and his team into the past and ultimately depend upon chemical analyses, a bust fragment, and an old woman’s memory to finally piece the puzzle together.

In the Key of Death is the 10^th and hopefully not the final in the Irish Detectives series by British author Scott Hunter. With all of the characters and sub-plots, it requires a close reading, but it is a richly rewarding one. Hunter spins a good tale, often keeping the reader biting his nails and telling himself “It’s just a story; it’s just a story.”

And I'm putting in my plea for there to be an eleventh in the series.

The Irish Detective series includes Black December, Creatures of Dust, Death Walks Behind You, A Crime for All Seasons, Silent as the Dead, Gone Too Soon, The Enemy Inside, When Stars Grow Dark, The Cold Light of Death and Closer to the Dead. Hunter has also published the novels The Trespass, The Ley Lines of Lushbury, Long Goodbyes, and The Serpent & the Slave, and the memoir Rattle and Drum. In addition to writing fiction, Hunter is an IT consultant and musician. He lives with his family in England.