Detective Inspector Ian Drake of the North Wales Police Service is back from his honeymoon in Tenerife. And his first day in the office, he gets a murder case tossed in his lap.
A well-heeled local businesswoman is found hanged in her clothing shop, one of the many businesses she operates. She’s dressed in 1930s clothes; she and her husband were known for hosting charitable fundraisers with 1930s themes. As Drake and team soon discover, they were also known for histing “spinoff parties,” also known as mate-swapping or swinger parties.
Drake discovers a long list of suspects. The husband has a motive, as does at least two now-divorced participants in the spinoff parties. And the killer seems to be relishing the attention to the case and helps it along by sending photographs of the dead woman to news media. A second murder occurs, and this time the killer takes photographs of the police at the crime scene, sending them to the personal attention of DI Drake.
Stephen Puleston
Looking Good Dead is the 12th novel in the DI Ian Drake mystery series by Welsh author Stephen Puleston. It’s a well-plotted story about a police detective with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Drake has progressed since the first novel, when his OCD was threatening his marriage to a doctor (and would eventually lead to his divorce). He’s being helped greatly by the woman who’s become his new wife.
What I hadn’t previously noticed was that Puleston has written the Drake stories in such a way that the OCD is literally part of the narrative. Descriptions of characters are very detailed and precise, as are the descriptions of how Drake and his team travel to different locations, with precise highway designations, speeds, roadway obstacles, bridges, and tunnels. It’s as if Drake himself is overseeing the writing to make sure it meets his expectations.
Puleston publishes two series of Welsh police detective stories. Detective Inspector Ian Drake is with the North Wales Police Service, and Detective Inspector John Marco is with the South Wales Police Service. The author originally trained and practiced as a; solicitor/lawyer. He also attended the University of London. He lives in Wales, very close to where his fictional hero lives and works.
Related:
My review of Written in Blood.
My review of Another Good Killing.
My review of Against the Tide.
My review of A Cold Dark Heart.
My review of A Cold Dark Heart.
My review of Dead and Gone by Stephen Puleston.
My review of Time to Die by Stephen Puleston.
My review of Stone Cold Dead by Stephen Puleston.
Some Thursday Readings
The Heyday of Pulp Fiction – Keith Roysdon at CrimeReads.
Rejected by a Robot: You Aren’t the Writer These Droids Are Looking For – David Murray at Writing Boots.
Tradition and the Truth That Anchors Us – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.
Looking Back at the End of Blue & Gray – Sean Michael Chick at Emerging Civil War.
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