Thursday, August 29, 2024

"Hillary's Back!" by Faith Martin


I knew the last DI Hillary Greene mystery novel wasn’t Hillary’s last case. Hillary’s Final Case looked like it might be, but author Faith Martin still had a few tricks up her sleeve, and a few more cases for Hillary to solve. 

Appropriately enough, the title of the next (and eighteenth) installment in the series is Hillary’s Back!. She’s back, all right, and still working as a civilian consultant in the cold case unit of the Thames Valley Police in Kidlington, near Oxford. But she’s experienced personal loss, and her boss is wondering how she’ll do.

 

She also has a new team, a retired soldier injured in an IED explosion and a formerly retired sergeant who seems like everybody’s favorite aunt until you know what she used to do for the police. The retired sergeant knows Hillary and what she can do, and the retired soldier soon comes to realize that he’s landed on his feet with an incredibly capable, competent, and experienced boss.

 

Faith Martin

Their cold case: the stabbing murder of a young man that everyone was glad to see the end of. He’d been a pusher, a pimp, and an all-around wastrel, probably killed by one of his drug clients. While there were plenty of suspects, there were also plenty of alibis or no way to prove someone was at the scene, which was in the woods near the victim’s house (where he liked to do his drug transactions).

 

Watching Hillary unravel an impossible case is just as much an education for the reader as it is for her new team. Hillary’s Back! is an enthralling story. 

 

In addition to the DI Hillary Greene novels, Martin (a pen name for Jacquie Walton) has also published the Ryder and Loveday novels as well as the Jenny Sterling mysteries. Under the name Joyce Cato, she has published several non-series detective stories. Both Cato and Martin are also pen names for Walton. (Walton has another pen name as well – Maxine Barry, under which she wrote 14 romance novels.) A native of Oxford, she lives in a village in Oxfordshire.

 

Related:

 

Murder on the Oxford Canal by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at the University by Faith Martin

 

Murder of the Bride by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Village by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Family by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at Home by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Meadow by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Mansion by Faith Martin.

 

Murder by Fire by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at Work by Faith Martin.

 

Murder Never Retires by Faith Martin.

 

Murder of a Lover by Faith Martin.

 

Murder Never Misses by Faith Martin.

 

Murder by Candlelight by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in Mind by Faith Martin.

 

Hillary’s Final Case by Faith Martin

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

An Ode to Charles Willeford – Michael Ledwidge at CrimeReads.

 

Dark Academia – Pamela Steiner at Closed Doors, Open Windows.

 

A Wonderful Career in Crime: Charles Cowlam’s Masquerades in the Civil War Era & Gilded Age by Frank W. Garmon Jr. – Aaron Stoyack at Emerging Civil War.

 

The Socialite Kidnaper – Laura Shimel at Missouri Historical Society.

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