2017 contemporary police mystery, eighth in Cleeves' Vera Stanhope
series. A corrupt policeman, now in prison, offers a solution to a
decades-old disappearance, if Vera will look out for his bastard
daughter…
Which means there are two separate matters going on here; Vera
visits Patty, abandoned by her husband and struggling both with three
children and with her own mental health, but there seems to be more
going on than just that. And the team looks into the disappearance of
Robbie Marshall, one of the group of minor criminals who collected
around Vera's now-dead father back in the day (they shared an interest
in birds and illicit egg-collecting).
So they follow instructions, and find a body… and another body too, in
the same place. Put there at the same time? Sooner? Later? None of
these makes much sense… and given that someone else gets killed, it's
clearly not something everybody has forgotten about.
So there's plenty of investigation, and tracking down people who were
last known twenty or thirty years ago and may have completely changed
their lives—or died—by now. But there's also observation of the
setting, particularly Whitley Bay, a popular clubbing spot for the
Newcastle crowd in the 1980s and 1990s but now largely defunct and on
the verge of regeneration. (The imaginary fishing town of Mardle in
Harbour Street worked well too, but there's something about a real
location which makes a difference.)
Another thing I appreciate is that there isn't a single purpose among
the criminals here: there are individuals, with their own goals, who
may be temporarily allied but will happily turn each other in (or
blame everything on a dead guy) if they see the chance to save
themselves.
While the earlier books focused most on Vera and her long-time
assistant Joe Ashworth, I was glad to see that this was more of an
ensemble piece, with fellow police Holly and Charlie not only
displaying their personalities but learning and changing as they
go—and bringing their own particular skills to bear.