BURIED ANGELS

4 stars out of 5

This is one of those series I can count on when I want to settle in with a fast-paced whodunit with interesting, and for the most part likable, characters. So it's hardly surprising that I enjoyed this one (the eighth featuring Detective Inspector Lottie Parker). Once again, I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy.

Lottie is older now - a relatively young grandmother, in fact - and she's found a new love - also a detective - after losing her beloved husband a while back. She and her extended family are living in a too-small house in Ragmullin, and although she loves all her relatives dearly, she's more than happy to go to work. As this book opens, she's called to a railroad track, beside which two young boys spotted - by way of the drone they were flying - what appeared to be a body. As it turns out, that's only partially true; it's the torso of a young woman who at first glance appears to have been murdered and frozen. 

Readers also learn that concurrently, a pregnant woman who's trying to get her fixer-upper in better shape before the baby arrives is shocked to find the scull of a child that's been hidden behind a fireplace for who knows how long. The baby's father, though, is insistent that they keep the discovery a secret.

Chapters flip back and forth to show what's going on in the lives of some of the characters who are suspects (and to mysterious events of two decades ago), and gruesome murders in the here and now make Lottie and her police cohorts wonder if there could be a connection between long-ago murders and those of today. But despite their best efforts, the investigation seems to be going nowhere fast (further irritating Lottie's new supervisor, who clearly isn't her fan to begin with).

As I've said with the other books in the series, the very large number of characters makes it hard to keep them all sorted. But if you just sit back and go with the flow, it all works out in the end very well. And in this instance, the ending hints that Lottie could be headed in a new direction next time out. That sounds exciting to me - bring it on!

Buried Angels by Patricia Gibney (Bookouture, May 2020); 451 pp.