"The Descent" by Matt Brolly

Detective Inspector (DI) Louise Blackwell of the Weston-super-Mare Police is having a major headache with her brother Paul. Unable to cope with the death of his wife, he’s been regularly drinking himself into a stupor – and ignoring his responsibilities for his young daughter Emily. Blackwell’s parents are nearly beside themselves with worry. 

Blackwell is also investigating a likely suicide. A young woman in her 20s has been found at the foot of a cliff, followed by a second suicide in similar circumstances. While the reader has a better idea of what’s happening – a parallel story line is developing with the people involved – Blackwell and her team are struggling to find any leads at all, or if anyone even knew the victims.

 

Matt Brolly

Blackwell is struggling to keep her brother’s situation from interfering with the investigation. And then he disappears with his daughter. Blackwell asks police colleagues in other departments to help, and slowly they learn that there was a lot more going on in Paul’s life than numbing the pain with excess alcohol.

 

The Descent is the second novel in the DI Louise Blackwell series by Matt Brolly. It’s a fascinatingly different kind of read – less a mystery and more a suspense story. And he winds up it up with a tense, edge-of-your-seat ending.

 

Brolly has written several mystery novels in the DI Louise Blackwell series, including The Crossing, The Descent, The Gorge, The Mark, The Pier, and The Bridge. He’s also written several novels in the DCI Lambert series and the Lynch and Rose series. He lives in London with his family.

 

Related:

 

The Crossing by Matt Brolly.

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Change Merchants: Why rule by nerds leads to perpetual chaos – N.S. Lyons at The Upheaval.

 

Morgan’s Raid Begins – June 1863 – Caroline Davis at Emerging Civil War.

 

Go On, Adam, Breathe – artwork by Jack Baumgartner at The School for the Transfer of Energy.

 

C A Mathew, Photographer – Spitalfields Life.

"The Crossing" by Matt Brolly

Detective Inspector (DI) Louise Blackwell has been exiled to the police station in Weston-super-Mare, about 20 miles from her former headquarters in Bristol. Her police partner lied about what happened during a confrontation with a killer, and Louise had shot the man. It turned out that the killer wasn’t armed, the opposite of what the partner had told Louise. An investigation cleared her, sort of, she was transferred to the smaller and less active station, and her partner got the promotion Louise should have had. And everyone in her new police office knows she’s under a cloud. 

A body is found on the beach; it’s clear the elderly woman had been tortured before being killed. Then a priest is murdered in the confessional. Few would have made the connection between the two cases, but Louise did. And the link was an old fire at the church decades before.

 

The reader knows what the investigating police do not know. The killer is a man in his 30s, seeking to gain revenge. What the reader doesn’t know is why – and it’s the “why” that Louise must unravel to find the killer before he murders again.

 

Matt Brolly

And chomping at the bit to take over the case is her old partner, who would love nothing better than to drive Louise out of the police force.

 

The Crossing by British writer Matt Brolly is the first in the DI Louise Blackwell series, and it’s an edge-of-your-seat story filled with tension (and the hope that the former partner will get his just desserts). As a character, Louise Blackwell is a nice blend of sharp-as-a-tack police officer with a number of human frailties.

 

Brolly has written several mystery novels in the DI Louise Blackwell series, including The Crossing, The Descent, The Gorge, The Mark, The Pier, and The Bridge. He’s also written several novels in the DCI Lambert series and the Lynch and Rose series. He lives in London with his family.