I’d been worried. I’d come to the last published DI Hillary Greene crime novel, and there was no word on whether there would be a new one. Each book in the series has been consistently good. I’d even subscribed to the author’s email newsletter, which had been quiet on the subject. That is, until about a week before it was published. I pre-ordered it, and then it arrived.
Murder Under the Sun is the 22nd novel in the DI Hillary Greene detective series by Faith Martin, and it lives up to the standard set by its predecessors.
For the last several stories, Greene has been retired as a detective inspector for the Thames Valley Police, but she’s been working as a civilian employee at police headquarters looking into cold cases. She has two people on her team – Claire Wolley, herself a retired police officer, and Gareth Proctor, a former soldier disabled by an IED explosion while serving in the army.
It’s summer and unseasonably hot for England. Staying cool is something of a second job for just about everyone. And it’s in the heat that a new cold case is assigned to the team. Fifteen years earlier, a woman had been struck from behind in her home and killed. No weapon, other than the ubiquitous “blunt instrument,” had ever been identified. Her body had been found by a teenaged daughter coming home from school.
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| Faith Martin |
Hillary and her team painstakingly review the files, check with police officers involved in the original investigation, and interview family members and any potential witnesses. They’re dogged by an enterprising reporter, who’s determined to make his name in news. And the investigation proceeds slowly, as the team looks for anything missed in the original probe.
They may be facing one of Hillary’s vastly few failures, when another, and related, death occurs. And it’s Hillary Greene who will manage to run circles around the new investigating officer and ultimately the perpetrator.
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.
Murder Under the Sun is an excellent read. Martin leaves clues, but she also manages to stay ahead of the reader, making this story (like the others) hard to put down. And the novel contains just enough hints to suggest that a 23rd is more than possible.
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.
Hillary’s Back! by Faith Martin.
Murder Now and Then by Faith Martin.
Murder in the Parish by Faith Martin.
Murder on the Train by Faith Martin.
Some Monday Readings
Images found on Civil War battlefields: who were they? – John Banks’ Civil War Blog.
Civil War Musings: The Battles in My Backyard – Joseph Ricci at Emerging Civil War.
Write Soon and Write Often: Soldiers, Letters, Mail, and Boxes – Central Virginia Battlefields Trust.
At Old Liverpool St Station – Spitalfields Life.
The Liberation of Florence – Frederick Hartt at The Imaginative Conservative.
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