"Murder of Angels" by Jack Gatland

A police detective dying from cancer walks into his local police station and confesses to a murder of a teenaged girl. He will bring the police to where the body is buried, but only if it’s with his onetime subordinate DI Declan Walsh.  

Walsh is found and accompanies his long-ago mentor to the scene. Sure enough, a body is buried. The self-confessed murdered tells Walsh that he didn’t really do it; he’s simply taking the fall from the real murderer who’s connected to one of England’s crime families. If he does, he says, a big payment goes to his ex-wife and their college-aged daughter. And he’s hoping Walsh will be able to solve the case and find the real murderer.

 

It appears that the burial happened about a year before. The case begins to turn into something else when a second body is found, buried about the same time in Birmingham. Both are of teenaged girls about the same age. The case becomes even more interesting, and confounding, when it appears the two girls are the same person, down to the rose tattoo on a shoulder. 

 

Two identical murder victims can’t happen. Both were killed in the same way – strangled with some like a metal rosary. And he knows the policeman didn’t do it. As Walsh and his team dig deeper, they find themselves in the crossfire of what looks like a budding criminal gang war. And it’s a gang war than even most of the gangs involved even know is getting ready to happen.

 

Jack Gatland

The only thing Walsh can be sure of is that just about everyone involved is lying, including people on his own team.

 

Murder of Angels is the second of 19 DI Declan Walsh mysteries by British writer Jack Gatland. It’s almost a dark, noirish version of a Shakespearean comedy about twins and mixed-up identities. Throw in misdeeds by policemen themselves. Add ambitious young criminals and their elders prepared to do anything to keep control. The result is an explosive mix or murder and mayhem.

 

Gatland is the pen name for bestselling writer Tony Lee, who’s written comics, graphic novels, audio drama, TV and film series, the BBC and ITV, and a host of publishers. In addition to the Declan Walsh series, he’s also published four novels in the Ellie Reckless series, six in the Tom Marlowe series, and several others.

 

Related:

 

Letter from the Dead by Jack Gatland.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

DOJ Indicts Doctor Who Exposed Barbarism of “Gender-Affirming Care” – Christopher Rufo at City Journal.

 

How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe – Sharon Lerner at ProPublica. 

 

Give Me a Place: An East Tennessee farmer praises a simple piece of technology – Brian Miller at Plough Quarterly.

 

Baillie Gifford cancels all remaining sponsorships of literary festivals and Book festival activists are making absurd demands over Baillie Gifford – The Guardian. 

 

Preventing the Naomi Wolf Problem – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.