SILENT SUSPECT

4 stars out of 5

I've said before that while I truly enjoy this series, I never totally warmed up to the main character, detective inspector Jessica Daniel, until Book 12 (this is the 13th). In that one she won me over, and after reading this one I remain a fan. She's a tough-as-nails, no-nonsense woman whose background issues don't get in her way - well, most of the time, anyway.

As this one begins, Jessica has received an ominous phone call from her wayward young friend Rebecca ("Bex"), who had been living with Jessica but recently disappeared with no warning. Jessica leaves Manchester, where she works and lives, to try and find her on a beach some 50 miles away. There, she notices a "missing" poster showing a young girl named Katy, who bears a strong resemblance to Bex. When Jessica calls the number on the poster, the man who answers claims to be Peter, Katy's brother.

They meet in person, but Peter has no knowledge of Bex. Disappointed, Jessica returns to her rather seedy motel room and single-handedly empties the mini-bar's contents (well okay, maybe she used both hands). When she crawls out of bed - pretty thoroughly hung over - she gets a sobering wake-up call; the man she met has been murdered. Not only was she the last known person to have seen him alive, there's blood on her car that wasn't there the day before. The local police detective is willing to cut her some slack because she's "one of them," but at the same time, she's considered a prime suspect. From that point on, it's mostly Jessica trying to stay in the shaky good graces of the law despite mounting evidence of her guilt while continuing to look for Bex on her own. The journey takes her to the bowels of the city she's in - almost literally - and reveals some nasty goings-on involving drug and human trafficking. 

Needless to say, Jessica lives to see another day (or more to the point, another book), although she doesn't emerge totally unscathed. Interesting to me is the author's explanation that the series has been developed to showcase "seasons" of Jessica's life; books 8-13 are Season 2, which means the next one will mark the start of Season 3. What do I say to that? Bring it on!

Silent Suspect by Kerry Wilkinson (Bookouture, January 2019); 320 pp.