Simply a bloody good read: Stonecold Heart by Caz Freer

Many thanks to NetGalley for allowing me early access to this book.

A few months ago I blogged about Mark Billingham (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Their-Little-Secret-Thorne-Novels/product-reviews/0751566977/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_hist_4?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=four_star&reviewerType=all_reviews&pageNumber=1#reviews-filter-bar) and identified him as "one of the school of British crime writers who began to flourish at the beginning of this new century", well Caz Freer has just also entered those ranks with flying colours and a fresh new voice with a distinctive Irish accent. I am a very jaded whodunnit reader but this book was a breeze from start to finish and I could not put it down. The personalities of the different members of the police team were deftly portrayed, and especially their sense of camaraderie and purpose, so much so that you felt you were one of them or you wanted to be one of them. It brought to my mind that old TV series "Hill Street blues".

The murder was fairly routine as were suspects, a bunch of entitled upper-middle-class London egotists at least one of whom is a socially adept psychopath. The victim was a young female idealistic Australian gap year student. I solved the crime by applying my "Agatha Christie approach", but of course the crime is often not the main attraction of these kinds of books. That would be the police environment and the world of our protagonist, DC Cat Kinsella, who like the hero of those classic Taiwanese "Infernal Affairs" movies has one foot in the land of law and order and another, through her family connections, in the Irish criminal underground. Cat and her ongoing family, amorous and moral dilemmas make for a compelling protagonist which is a good thing because everything is seen through her eyes.
The murder is solved but there are many things still left pending by the end. 
Bring on the next book, I say!