Let The Dead Speak by Jane Casey

 

A young woman returns home to find her mother missing and the house covered in blood. Everything points to murder. Maeve Kerrigan, Josh Derwent and the rest of the MIT need to investigate the woman's life to try and find a motive that will help them track down the murderer and, hopefully, find the missing body.

Let The Dead Speak by Jane Casey is book 7 in the Maeve Kerrigan series. This story takes place eight months after the previous book, After The Fire, and we see a much more self-assured Kerrigan. She's recently been promoted to Detective Sergeant and has taken under her wing the new recruit to the team, DC Georgia Shaw. The promotion means that Kerrigan feels that DI Josh Derwent has less power over her, she is also spending less time working alongside him as she works with the new recruit.

An ominous opening immediately builds the tension. A young woman, clearly distressed, returning home. My immediate thoughts turned to why she was so upset. When the woman, Chloe, is approached by her neighbour, you then begin to wonder why she is so distrustful of him. It is only when Chloe enters her home that the real terror sets in. We are given vague descriptions of inside the house and it's blatantly obvious to the reader what has happened, but Chloe struggles to understand the ramifications of what she is seeing.

What follows is an insidious tale set in suburbia, where everyone is hiding a secret. Combined with this is a mother who is prepared to do almost anything to protect her child. The fact that members of a religious community are at the heart of the story makes things even more sinister.

The new recruit to the team is an interesting character. Initially, she comes across as inexperienced but keen to fit in. Kerrigan, by taking her under her wing, hopes that Georgia will avoid a lot of the pitfalls she experienced. Unfortunately, we quickly learn that Georgia keeps trying to undermine Kerrigan, sulking if she's not at the forefront of the investigation.

As we have come to expect from our lead character she puts her own life on the line in the pursuit of tracking down a murderer. This, combined with a number of shocking twists, keeps you gripped throughout.