I am in Mexico with bandits, police officers and others who maybe can’t be trusted

I’ve been reading the crime novels of Iona Whishaw since I first came upon them in Canada (see my review here of the first book). The author has recently published the twelfth in the series The Cost of A Hostage which I purchased new as a treat because I love the covers on the books – it took Amazon some time to find it and I thought that they never would, and that I would have to buy the Kindle version, so I was delighted when it appeared through my letterbox. Strictly, it doesn’t meet the rules for this challenge in that it hasn’t been on my to-be-read piles for any length of time but as they are my rules I can break them if I want !

Although we have previously used Canada for my summer challenge (see here) this book also involved travel to Mexico for the two main characters which is yet another new country for the challenge and one which I know little about – this summer is definitely revealing how geographically challenged I am !

In this story our heroine Lane Winslow and her husband Inspector Frederick Darling go to Mexico to try and find out what has happened to Darling’s brother who has disappeared and may be being held hostage. While they are away the remaining police in their small town investigate the possible kidnapping of a child and a murder. The book alternates the two stories and also includes quite a lot about the personal life and relationships of the characters. I think you could read this book if you hadn’t read the previous instalments but as the author develops characters and relationships over the twelve books it might be best not to start here.

The books are set in the late 1940s and usually involve something to do with the war – Lane was a secret operative during the conflict and her past comes back to haunt her quite a few times including in this book. We see Mexico City and also the desert where Darling’s brother had been working for a mining company. The landscape and climate play a large part in the plot and so too does political corruption and the existence of gangs of bandits.

I have enjoyed all the books in the series very much but I particularly enjoyed this one. It was full of action, the viewpoint shifted regularly and there were lots of puzzles for the characters to solve. As usual, despite the misogyny of the times, Lane is an engaging and effective heroine who usually saves herself from whatever difficulties she encounters. I recommend this series.

This book goes on my bookcase with the other two in the series that I own in paper form – I would like them all to be physical books and not Kindle versions but they are not easy to get hold of, even secondhand.