Howard Linskey

When Eva Dunbar goes missing it takes a while for the police to realise that she is just one in a string of women who have gone throughout the North. Then a body is found and links are made with an old case where a woman was killed but before she died she claimed to have been held prisoner. For DI Bradshaw the case is complicated by the ongoing corruption in the police force and the antagonism of his colleagues to his use of the journalists Tom and Helen to support him. For their part Tom is juggling his young girlfriend and the needs of his old flame who has a shameful secret and is being blackmailed and Helen is vacillating between her ex and her feelings for Tom.
Again Linskey has written an excellent police procedural set across Durham and Northumbria and rooted in the less that pc times of the 1990s. Whilst mobile phones are around the internet isn't and good old-fashioned police work is the order of the day. However Linskey does have a thread running through his books about corruption and prejudice in the forces and this lifts his books from the mundane into something extra.… (mehr)

The long hot summer of 1976 and the small Durham village of Maiden Hill is rocked by the disappearance of a ten year old girl. Susan Verity went out to play with her friends but never came back. Although her body was never found, serial killer Adrian Wicklow was believed to have killed Susan and over time her murder seemed to be a curse on the five survivors. The summer of 1996 and, as England becomes obsessed with Euro '96, Wicklow is dying of cancer. Tasked to hear his final confession DI Bradshaw feels played by the monster but works alongside his consultants, journalists Helen Norton and Tom Carney, to find the truth. Meanwhile Carney is also engaged to look for a missing girl who may have been witness to a nasty crime.

Set in the mid-90s, Linskey's books are set in the North-East and the sense of time and place is very evident. Little snippets about Euro '96 are gems, the overt sexism of the police and tight-knit nature of communities really work well. I enjoyed the way Linskey does not focus solely on the police but also on the journalists and his commentary on the fact that people try to put individuals into categories that don't always fit (serial killers) was clever. It's not the most complex story ever and, although the third in a series, it sits well as a stand-alone.… (mehr)