A murder with roots in the past

Elly Griffiths writes several series of crime novels. I have reviewed her Ruth Galloway books here and her Brighton novels here. I would also draw your attention to the fact that she has published under another name and I review one of her contemporary novels under the name Domenica Del Rosahere.

Bleeding Heart Yard is one of three novels that the author has published which feature DI Harbinder Kaur. What is a little different in this series is that the author has a main character who is part of the plot and who the narrative follows for a lot of the book as well as Harbinder. In the first book The Stranger Diaries it was a woman who was being terrorised and in the second The Postscript Murders it was an older man who was investigating the death of a friend. In this book the main character is Cassie who is a police officer working under Harbinder but who is part of a group of friends around whom the plot revolves.

The story begins at a school reunion, attended by Cassie, where one of the attendees who is an MP is found dead. At first is seems that he may have been murdered by someone who disagreed with his political views but after a second murder within the group it becomes apparent that for these friends this is not the first sudden death they have experienced. To solve the present day murder the police will have to delve into the past but Cassie, and others, have secrets that they don’t want revealed.

This is an accomplished crime novel as you would expect from this author. It’s full of red herrings and surprising revelations as it turns out that things that the friends believe to be true may not be so after all. The ending was a bit of a surprise to me and I am not sure that the author really gave us sufficient clues to work out what was happening for ourselves but I found the book to be a very satisfying and enjoyable read. Don’t worry if you haven’t read the first two in the series as it makes no difference to your understanding of this one although the author does briefly reference some of the characters in passing.