Marilyn's Mystery Reads

There’s good news and bad news about Jane Casey’s series featuring London detective Maeve Kerrigan.  The good news is that the novels are outstanding; the bad news is that it took me so long to learn about them.

Let the Dead Speak is Maeve’s first case since her promotion to detective sergeant.  She and her team are called to a particularly bloody scene at the West London home of Kate and Chloe Emery.  Teenage Chloe has returned home unexpectedly after a very unhappy visit with her father and his second family, and she finds her house is covered in blood and her mother is nowhere to be found.

Chloe has some developmental issues, and it’s hard for Maeve to be certain exactly what has happened, especially since Chloe isn’t speaking at all.  She’s staying with her neighbors Oliver and Eleanor Norris, whose daughter Bethany is Chloe’s best friend.  The Norrises have volunteered to have Chloe stay with them as long as necessary, although it’s obvious to Maeve that Eleanor Norris is less than enthusiastic about having this house guest.

According to Oliver Norris, there might have been something, perhaps inappropriate, going on at the Emery house when Chloe spent the occasional weekend at her father’s.  He tells the detective he’s seen men coming and going from the house.  He says he tried to talk to Kate about this, even going so far as to invite her to their church, but “it didn’t go over too well.”  The Norrises belong to a small Christian sect, the Church of the Modern Apostles, that apparently believes in husbandly superiority, wifely subservience, and a lack of worldly technology.

When Maeve and her colleague Detective Inspector Josh Derwent do a second, more thorough search of the Emery house, Maeve finds a bag containing stained, torn women’s clothing in Kate’s otherwise immaculate bedroom closet.  The two detectives find it hard to understand why Kate would have saved these particular items.  Also, given the overwhelming amount of blood found in the house, it’s almost impossible to believe she’s still alive.  Certainly it appears that she could not have left by her own volition, but no one has found a trace of her.

Let the Dead Speak is a novel filled with fascinating characters and a tightly woven, believable plot.  There’s Chloe, clearly traumatized by her mother’s disappearance; the strange Norris family; their church’s leader; and a young man with a history of violence living on the same street.

Maeve Kerrigan is a wonderful heroine, strong and sure of herself after a difficult start at the beginning of her career.  She’s slightly wary about her new promotion, though, coming to her as it did because of the death of another detective on the team.  But she’s determined to show that she’s capable of handling whatever cases come her way.

A little more than a year ago in this blog I raved about After The Fire, the first Maeve Kerrigan mystery I’d read.   Let The Dead Speak is equally deserving of such high praise.

You can read more about Jane Casey at various internet sites.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.