Minette Walters is a crime author I’d not previously read. A few of her books have been adapted for TV – actually probably more have than haven’t – and I’ve watched a couple of those, but the review of this from it’s hardback appearance caught my eye a few months back, so I snapped it up when it reached paperback recently.
Connie Burns is a foreign correspondent of Zimbabwean origin who works for the Reuters news agency. In Sierra Leone she comes across a British ex-soldier out there who’s given a wide berth and who she believes may have been responsible for the murders of several local women. But with no proof, she can do nothing and thinks nothing more of him (although she had previously run in to him with a different name elsewhere in West Africa).
Fast forward to 2004, and Burns is working in Bagdhad. As we know, the place is swarming with ex-soldiers working for private security companies, and once again she spots the same man. Could he be a serial killer? Have any Iraqi women died in suspicious circumstance? Nothing’s really being investigated in a city ravaged by insurgents and effectively in the early stages of civil war. But digging around she does find a couple of cases. But the man she’s investigating realises that she might be on to him.
Her tour of duty in Bagdhad comes to an end and she heads off to the airport. En route, her car is pulled over and she’s kidnapped – seemingly just another victim of the local groups who can earn money by kidnapping Westerners for the various factions. Three days later she’s released, but will say nothing about her ordeal.
Back in England, she’s convinced that the man, MacKenzie’s after her, and she heads down to a small Dorset village to seek refuge and privacy. A secondary set of characters have their own secrets in the village. Somehow you know that events are all going to collide.
A little unlikely, perhaps, but a good tale well told.
