REVIEW: Why She Ran by Geraldine Hogan (ARC)

Why She Ran (DS Iris Locke #2) by Geraldine Hogan

Genre: Crime fiction, police procedural

Read: 15th February 2020

Goodreads

Purchase: Amazon

(publication date: 19th December 2019)

★★★ 3 stars

It's been a long time since I've read two books from the same series one after the other. So when WHY SHE RAN came up as next on my TBR list, and I hadn't yet read the first one, something told me I had to read the first one before the second one. And I am glad that I did. Because had I dived into this one first, I would have been disappointed to have comes across the spoilers from the first book peppered throughout. So trust me....read "Silent Night" aka "Her Sister's Bones" first!!!

DS Iris Locke is still reeling from grief and coming to terms with the revelations that have left her life in turmoil. Unable to return to her flat after the events culminating towards the end of the last book, Iris has taken a room at boarding house for the interim but has thankfully stayed on at Corbally and the Murder Team in Limerick. Despite the ghosts of the past surrounding her in the town, Iris knows this is where she belongs.

When her partner DS Ben Slattery calls her with a new case, Iris leaps at the chance to push her thoughts to the back of her mind and focus on the investigation at hand. A young woman has been found murdered at Curlew Hall, a residential care facility for troubled teens with rich parents. Rachel McDermott was bludgeoned to death on the kitchen floor and the patient in her care, 15 year old Eleanor Marshall, has disappeared.

As the daughter of a prominent local businessman, Eleanor has been deemed troubled for years. With reports of arson, violence and aggression leading to her being placed in the care facility and now the fact that she is missing, leads detectives to suspect that Eleanor is responsible for Rachel's death. But Iris is finding it difficult to connect a 15 year old to such a violent crime...and yet the evidence appears to point in her direction. But if she's innocent, then why did she run?

Eleanor's father calls a press conference pleading for the safe return of his daughter and yet he supplies a photo that is at least 4 years out of date. What is he hiding? And why is he trying to control the information being conveyed to the press?

A massive search is underway as both the Gardai and the public comb the woods surrounding Curlew Hall for the missing teenager. But the woods are endless and the area massive...and Eleanor is a vulnerable girl suffering from epilepsy. What if she has a grand mal seizure? And if she does, what if, with no help at hand, she dies as a result? The race is on to find Eleanor before it's too late. Too long in those woods and they could be looking for a body.

When a body of a young girl is found in the woods near Curlew Cross, Iris and Ben immediately feel they have failed Eleanor by not finding her time. But upon arrival at the crime scene are surprised to find the victim is not Eleanor but her younger sister Karena. The mystery deepens as the team then try to figure out who would want to kill Karena and why?

Returning to the care facility, Iris and Ben question staff and residents once again. Someone is lying. Where is Rachel's laptop? Why did she have over twenty thousand euro and where did it come from? And what possible motive did someone have for killing her? Rachel was well-liked by everyone. And Karena? Where did she fit into all this?

Although I didn't pick the villain in this one, it didn't shock me. I'm not sure why that is...maybe coming out of the first book with a twist that was both brilliant and shocking, I may have felt this one was a bit of a let down. If Iris is still reeling from the shock of those revelations in "Silent Night", I'm still reeling as well!

I enjoyed meeting up with the same old characters and the camaraderie between them all, particularly that of Iris and Ben who work extremely well together. Despite being so vastly different from one another, they seem to get each other perfectly. It was also somewhat bittersweet watching Ben with his estranged wife Maureen, in light of her recent diagnosis of dementia. The one character that was sorely missed from this installment was DI Coleman Grady. I especially wanted to delve into his past and uncover his secret tragedy. I hope his secondment was temporary because he was incredibly missed!

WHY SHE RAN is well-written but again, the story moved a little slowly in parts, going back and forth between the same people over and over. I don't have a lot of patience with overt descriptions and slow pacing in crime fiction. I enjoy the fast pace with pieces of a confusing puzzle coming together in an attempt to solve a baffling crime. But although it didn't have the same breakneck speed race to the end as the first one, but it is still enjoyable just the same.

Whilst I heartily recommend WHERE SHE RAN, I do advise you to read "Silent Night" aka "Her Sister's Bones" first. This is one series you can't do standalones with.

I would like to thank #GeraldineHogan, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #WhySheRan in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: Her Sister's Bones by Geraldine Hogan (ARC)

Her Sister's Bones (formerly Silent Night) (DS Iris Locke #1) by Geraldine Hogan

Genre: Crime fiction, police procedural, thriller

Read: 14th February 2020

Goodreads

Purchase: Amazon

(publications date: 23rd August 2019)

★★★★ 4 stars

As a fan of crime fiction and police procedurals, after a while many of them tend to be a little "samey" in the sense that they have all the same cliches - usually a bit of tension between the ranks as well as the token drunken cop with no life outside of work or the pub. While SILENT NIGHT did have these, it also had something a little different to offer. Something that you probably wouldn't see coming.

The fact that I did probably shows I read a little too much crime fiction thrillers that I see a twist around every corner. Ironically, I pieced most of the puzzle together at about a quarter of the way through...just because the conclusion I foresaw was a twist I honestly didn't see happening. I just though it would make things interesting if it did...

The story opens in a Prologue some 30 years ago with ten year old Anna in complete awe of her newborn baby sister, whom she silently named "Janey" after her doll. She was so enamoured by her that she even replicated the little birthmark Janey had on her right hand on her own and on her doll, so they were triplets of a kind.

One afternoon, with a storm in the air, Anna is gazing lovingly into baby Janey's pram whilst her mother is bustling about the kitchen and telling Anna to "stop bothering the baby and to go play with Ollie". Ollie was a boy who lived in the next cottage and they had played together for as long as she could remember. But now that baby Janey was here, Anna could see no point in such frivolities when she had a new baby sister to take care of. Even when Ollie came calling, she sent him away with a flea in his ear informing him that she was "minding her new baby sister".

But then suddenly, Anna felt a cold shiver up her spine and she turned to look back at where baby Janey's pram stood in the afternoon sun, her eyes wide. Her mother looked up and saw Anna's face as both mother and daughter ran to the pram, pulling back the shade. The pram was empty. Janey was gone.

Thirty years later and after a marginally successful undercover operation that went belly up, Detective Sergeant Iris Locke is now stationed in her hometown of Limerick, despite her father's reservations. As a detective who quickly moved up the ranks to Superintendent and on the force for over 40 years, Jack Locke cannot help but worry for his daughter. He doesn't want her to see the things he used to see and face the things he had to face during his career. But all Iris ever wanted to be was a detective on a Murder Squad like her father...and to make him proud.

Early one morning, Iris is called out to a horrifying crime scene that every guard, whether detective or uniform, hates the most. The burnt out remains of a house with three victims inside...and one of them is Anna Crowe, formerly Fairley, whose baby sister vanished without a trace 30 years before. Now Anna has been killed along with her own two children. But it's not as simple as it first appears. There was no electrical fault, no embers from the fireplace, no cooking accident. The three victims were all shot in the head before as they lay sleeping in their beds by the time the fire took hold. Who would do such a thing?

The team begin their investigations, looking into Anna's estranged husband Adrian and an art teacher at a college she had once attended. But Iris believes the key to Anna and her children's murders lay in the past...and a missing baby that was never found. She begins digging around and finds that the case files for the Fairley investigation have gone missing from archives and those uploaded to PULSE are restricted.

Frustrated, Iris is forced to ask her father about the case and is shocked to learn that he was the senior investigating officer in charge of the investigation. Her father had had a stellar career with an almost 100% solve rate...but the Fairley case was the only one he couldn't solve. But Jack is reluctant to discuss it saying only that it was the general consensus that the mother had been responsible for killing the baby whilst suffering post natal depression and was later institutionalised.

Iris doesn't understand why, not only her father but everyone else, brushes off her concerns surrounding the missing baby and the current case with the possibility of them being linked. She is determined to get to the bottom of both cases and prove one way or the other whether they are connected.

From her first day on the Murder Squad, Iris is teamed with DS Ben Slattery, an overweight aging gruff copper who enjoys a pint of Guinness and a whiskey chaser a little too much. The pair clearly do not hit it off but Iris refuses to let the bad-tempered detective get under her skin...and even if he does, she is just as determine not to show it. But as the investigation goes deeper, Slattery appears to gain a fresh appreciation for his new partner...even if she is the daughter of the old "guv".

But when it seems Slattery's days are numbered on the force, his first instinct is to head to the pub but instead he parks up in front of the house he shared with his wife for more than twenty years. Pondering her recent diagnosis after a car accident that almost killed her and claimed the life of another, Slattery wonders where he fits into anything - her life, the job - before his mind wanders to the case of Anna Crowe. He receives a phone call from a snout he'd visited with Iris earlier that day with some information on a senior officer that could turn everything on its head, and in turn he pieces the puzzle together with a shocking clarity.

The characters in SILENT NIGHT are an odd bunch that compliment each other. Iris, as the lead, is the typical strong determined detective that I often find irritating in books but I didn't in this case...though I'm not sure why. She's hardworking and ambitious but is a closed book. She doesn't want to live in her father's shadow but rather make her own mark in the guards, and resents any thought of favouritism.

Slattery is the stereotypical type. Failed marriage, drink problem and a bad attitude to boot...although this tough exterior hides his soft underbelly and the fact that he truly cares deeply about his cases and the victims. Despite his gruff nature, I quite liked Slattery.

DI Coleman Grady is another closed book. It is hinted that only Slattery and another detective know of his past which apparently affects him deeply...though to watch him at work you wouldn't know it. I look forward to picking his secrets apart and getting to know him further.

There are a few other characters peppered throughout that are crucial to the investigation such as June Quinn and Westmont (I think his name is), and another I can't begin to spell or pronounce (LOL). Their roles, while still significant, aren't at the forefront though I am sure we will get to know them as the series develops. However, we are introduced to everyone on the team in such a way that we do get to connect with them on some level that we look forward to getting to know them better.

Overall, the pace was rather slow to begin with although it did end up being a fast read. But it was well worth it to get to that ending.

The twist, when it came, was shocking despite having pieced it together myself just a quarter of the way into the story. I still didn't expect it eve though I had suspected it. And it was that twist that set this procedural apart from others. I just hope the series continues as one that is set apart from the rest which would make it unique and interesting.

SILENT NIGHT, which I believe has had its titled changed to HER SISTER'S BONES, is a brilliant debut to this fresh new series. It is compelling and intriguing with something a little different in store for readers despite its slow pace to begin with. Normally, that is something that would irk me, as I loathe slow burns, but there was just something immediately compelling about this book I simply had to devour.

I enjoyed SILENT NIGHT far more than I thought I would and as I am a little behind in my reading, I thought I would slot this one in first before tackling DS Locke's second installment. And I am glad I did because I didn't want to come across any reference to the first book made in the second to spoil what I essentially had yet to read. So my recommendation is read SILENT NIGHT aka HER SISTER'S BONES before tackling further cases by DS Locke.

As an aside, I don't see how either title SILENT NIGHT or HER SISTER'S BONES have much bearing on the story. I can see why the second was chosen but after reading it, I still fail to see its significance.

I would like to thank #GeraldineHogan, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #SilentNight #HerSistersBones in exchange for an honest review.