Cold, Cold Heart

March 6, 2017
Those who love to shuffle the pieces of a puzzle, eagerly anticipating that aha moment when the solution is revealed, will relish British author Cross’s third mystery featuring forensic psychologist Dr. Kate Hanson (after The Art of Deception). When the badly decomposed remains of 19-year-old student Elizabeth Williams are found in a shallow grave in a field outside Birmingham, Hanson—who teaches criminology at the University of Birmingham and is a consultant for the city’s Unsolved Crime Unit—joins the investigation. Curiously, the cause of death is inconclusive in the postmortem. With each interview, the possibilities shift and suspects emerge and recede only to reemerge in a new light. When an attempt is made on another young woman’s life, pressure is put on Hanson and the other team members to find the killer, and fast. Who murdered Elizabeth matters less than the why to Hanson, a strong lead readers will be able relate to. Agent: Camilla Wray, Darley Anderson Literary, TV and Film Agency (U.K.).

March 15, 2017
Forensic pathologist Kate Hanson (Art of Deception, 2013, etc.) struggles to solve the grisly murder of a promising student.Elizabeth Williams was smart, athletic, and outgoing. At age 12, she was hailed as the Birmingham Child Hero for her role in caring for her disabled mum. At 19, with her whole life ahead of her, she disappeared from her college without a trace. Now, a badly decomposed body found in the woods off Genners Lane turns out to be Elizabeth's. Her former boyfriend, Chris Turner, and her best friend, Jessica Simmonds, hardly bat an eye when police tell them that Elizabeth's body has surfaced. Her tutor, Lawrence Vickers, tut-tuts over news of Elizabeth's murder but denies being particularly close to her. Only a vagrant with the unlikely name of Michael Myers seems concerned by the discovery, but his claims to be a wildlife expert keeping the park under surveillance at night make the police regard him as a highly unreliable informant. As Hanson and Lt. Joe Corrigan search for anyone who might know anything about the dead student, they come across a conservation group called Renfrew, where Elizabeth seems to have applied for an internship. But administrators Aiden Malahide and Hugh Downey claim that Renfrew doesn't take on interns. Sorting truth from lies becomes as important as wading through physical evidence until, persistent to the last, Hanson and Corrigan make the crucial connections to a murder with a harrowing motive. Hanson merges thorough police procedure with wit and intuition in the heroine's lively third entry.

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This fifth "Grand & Batchelor" mystery (after The Island) has Victorian-era "private enquiry agents" Matthew Grand and James Batchelor deeply embedded in the muddy environs of the Thames. After Emilia, the wife of timber merchant Selwyn Byng, goes missing, he receives a note demanding ransom and no police involvement. He calls in the duo when he receives a package containing a finger with Emilia's ring on it. Then more gruesome body parts are seen bobbing around in the Thames. The enquiry agents are surrounded by a host of quirky characters. While there are macabre elements here and lots of 19th-century detail, everything seems filtered through a comic lens, and Grand and Batchelor can seem like a double act, appearing between engagements at the Hippodrome. VERDICT If you can imagine Dickens's Our Mutual Friend as adapted by Gilbert and Sullivan, you have the gist of this medley of mystery and comedy that proves there are still small treasures to be unearthed by mudlarks (river scavengers) in the debris found along the Thames.--Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

April 1, 2017
Forensic psychologist Kate Hanson works for the Unsolved Crime Unit (UCU), where her skill at providing insights into perpetrators' mind-sets and motives has been invaluable. So it's not surprising that Hanson is called in when the body of Elizabeth Williams, who's been missing for more than a year, is discovered in a shallow grave. The body is so decomposed that it's difficult to determine the cause of death. While Hanson and her colleagues are up for a challenge, this case seems nearly unsolvable, what with the time that's elapsed since Elizabeth's murder, an undetermined cause of death, and the only witness a mentally disabled man who claims he heard Elizabeth's killer speaking to her the night she died. But when a pregnant woman is attacked, and the words her attacker uses are almost identical to the ones the witness claims he heard Elizabeth's killer say, Hanson thinks she may have a real lead. A gripping, suspenseful, cleverly plotted story with plenty of unusual twists and a smart, independent heroine.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2018
Psychologist and police consultant Dr. Kate Hanson returns in another keep-'em-guessing installment of this popular and sharply written crime series. Ten years ago, Della Harrington was brutally murdered, and her body was left in a sexually explicit position. David Lockman, an acquaintance of Della's, was convicted of her murder and jailed for life. But when his conviction is overturned a decade later, it's up to the Unsolved Crime Unit, with Kate acting as psychological consultant, to find the real killer. Reviewing the evidence that convicted Lockman, Kate and the team quickly realize that once the police found a tenuous link between Della and Lockman, they were too quick to conclude he was her killer. Now the UCU needs to cast fresh eyes on the evidence, find a motive for the murder, and identify and investigate new suspects?tasks that prove more challenging than they appear at first. Characters with notable depth, a provocative plot, and a nifty twist make this a procedural to savor.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)