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Synopsis
Former cop Frank Elder is once more drawn out of retirement by a phone call from his ex-wife, this time asking him to look into the disappearance of her friend Jennie's older, widowed sister Claire in Nottingham. Elder reluctantly agrees to return to the city where his family disintegrated.
Elder soon uncovers sexual secrets of Claire's that take Jennie by surprise. But when Claire is found dead at home—unmarked and carefully dressed—it is Elder who is surprised by the similarities to an old case. To solve this riddle, Elder will have to repartner with another person from his past, Detective Inspector Maureen Prior, and delve into several suspects' own traumatic histories.
In a case in which neither memories, confessions, nor instincts can be trusted, Elder struggles with the weight of the past and Harvey delivers another psychologically trenchant page-turner.
The Washington Post - Patrick Anderson
Even as Elder interviews these men, he is trying to reestablish communication with his college-age daughter, whose abduction and rape a few years earlier he thinks he should have prevented. He's also wondering if he should have forgiven his ex-wife for the affair that caused him to end their marriage. Both challenges, personal and professional, are credibly resolved. The bonus, in this well-crafted police procedural, is the occasional elegance of Harvey's writing.