A Dark and Twisted Tide

April 28, 2014
Someone is snuffing the life out of young women, then shrouding their weighted bodies before tossing them into the Thames, in Bolton’s haunting fourth novel featuring London police officer Lacey Flint (after 2013’s Lost). Though the former detective constable has recently transferred to the Marine Unit in hopes of putting a string of disturbing cases behind her, she’s ordered to work on the investigation, since the inquiry was launched by her discovery of one of the victims while she was swimming in the river near her houseboat. Despite considerable personal turmoil—including having her lover, Det. Insp. Mark Joesbury, disappear on an undercover job—it’s not long before she’s immersing herself in the increasingly dangerous hunt for a possible serial killer targeting illegal Afghan immigrants. Bolton sweeps the reader along with Lacey until finally running aground after a few twists too many. Agent: Anne-Marie Doulton, Ampersand Agency (U.K.).

May 1, 2014
A cop recovering from a near drowning discovers the first of several bodies in a mystery set near, along and in the Thames.Constable Lacey Flint of the Metropolitan Police's Marine Unit, who lives in a houseboat, knows the river well enough to negotiate its tides and currents as a wild-swimmer. When she finds a shrouded, skeletal body tied to the landing stage by the old Kings Wharf, she has to report it even though the report puts her on the spot for questionable swimming practices. DI Dana Tulloch, who supervises the case, was Lacey's boss when Lacey was still a detective herself, before a string of three bad cases changed her life and made her return to uniform. When the evidence suggests the drowning victim was a young woman, possibly of Middle Eastern extraction, Lacey goes undercover to try to flush out the sex traffickers she suspects are responsible. Lacey is used to a false identity; for reasons that aren't made entirely clear, she's had one for years, and she's willing to take chances to save lives. She has the example, too, of her quasi-boyfriend, Mark Joesbury, a full-time undercover cop who makes a couple of secret visits to Lacey's houseboat. But she's increasingly suspicious that someone besides Joe is visiting her boat and leaving threatening messages. Lacey's attempt to rescue one of the victims, her friendship with a set of elderly twins, infestations of Chinese crabs and the knowledge of obstetrics Dana gleaned from her attempts to get pregnant all come together in the tense, horror-filled, over-the-top sequence that ends Lacey's fourth case.The aquatic maverick heroine is pulled from water so many times that Bolton (Like This, For Ever, 2013, etc.) has to keep upping the ante. Nevertheless, Lacey's a brave and resourceful protagonist who earns her boss's and readers' respect.

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May 1, 2014

Deeply troubled by her last case involving child murder (Lost), London constable Lacey Flint seeks some peace by moving to a houseboat on the River Thames. Soon, however, she discovers a decomposing body in the river--and then she finds more of them. On examination, all appear to be the bodies of immigrant women who have been drowned, wrapped in linen shrouds, and left in a macabre underwater graveyard for Lacey to find. With her undercover cop boyfriend accused of murder and her boss leery of her involvement in yet another homicide case, Lacey is left on her own to discover the identity of the serial killer before she becomes the next victim. VERDICT Bolton, also well known as S.J. Bolton, has written several stand-alones as well as three earlier Lacey Flint mysteries. She delights in a kind of gothic horror, weaving suspenseful tales featuring complex, often tormented characters. Readers can expect many details about Afghan immigrants, the Thames, and esoteric medical conditions, but the focus remains on Lacey. Just as readers think they know the killer's identity, there is another shocking twist in this sometimes melodramatic but always gripping tale by a master of the genre. [See Prepub Alert, 1/6/14; "Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/15/14; library marketing.]--Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2014
Still unsettled by her experiences as a detective constable, quick-witted Lacey Flint, last seen in Lost (2013), returns to work, she's now assigned to London's river police. While swimming in the Thames, she comes across the bloated corpse of young woman, wrapped in linen, who turns out to be from a particular region of Afghanistan, which leads Lacey to recall her rescue of another young woman, from the same region, who was smuggled into London some months before. Lacey soon finds herself working alongside her old detective colleagues, her willful disregard for procedure driving her superior nuts. Thanks to Lacey, more bodies are recovered from the Thames, and Lacey once again lands in the middle of a particularly baffling mystery. The obstinate yet emotionally vulnerable Lacey, who made her first appearance in Now You See Me (2011), remains a strong character, but this time her fans will need a bit of patience to negotiate the plethora of sometimes confusing twists and turns.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)