Perfect Death by Helen Fields

 

A young women dies of hypothermia on Arthur's Seat, early indications are that it was a tragic accident. When her sister realises she's not wearing a treasured piece of jewellery DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach begin to wonder if they have a murder on their hands. While the investigation is taking place the team have to come to terms with the suicide of their recently retired boss. Turner refuses to accept her ex-boss would contemplate taking his own life. As she digs deeper she discovers links to organised crime.

Perfect Death is book 3 in the DI Luc Callanach series by Helen Fields. Having stumbled across book 7 in the series I decided to work my way through the rest of the series. 

As the novel opens we discover that newly promoted DCI Ava Turner is struggling with her new role. She's more than capable of carrying out the job but is finding it difficult to come to terms with the distance she now has to maintain between herself and the rest of her team. Her relationship with DI Luc Callanach is still a little strained after the events of the previous book, however he's the one person who really understands what she's going through.

The opening crime is handled in a very understated way, to the point where it isn't obvious that a crime has even taken place. The story then jumps to a new set of characters and you begin to wonder how there can be any connection. This subtle story-line really draws you in and is slowly revealed giving us an extremely manipulative killer who feeds on the grief of others.

A second thread involving the suicide of the teams previous boss really brings out the characters of Turner and Callanach. We see how they are willing to risk everything to ensure the memory of someone they had a lot of respect for isn't tainted. Unfortunately the more they dig, the greater the links to organised crime seem to become, resulting in a lot of conflicted emotions. 

It's great to see the return of some very familiar characters in the team. When I read book 1 I really didn't like DS Lively but by book 3 he's become one of my favourite characters and towards the end of this book I was very worried about his future, along with a number of others.

Helen Fields has produced an engrossing dual story-line that mixes a slow and insidious thread with one featuring menace and stomach churning violence. I can't wait to get to the next book in the series.