White Nights

Detective Jimmy Perez is at his girlfriend's art show when a man collapses in grief after viewing a picture.  When Jimmy questions him, the man seems to be suffering from amnesia, plus he he has no identification on him.  When Jimmy goes to see if he can find any more details, the man disappears.  The following morning Perez receives a phone call about an apparent suicide.  A man has ganged himself in a boathouse.  The unusual thing is, the dead man is wearing a mask.  Perez feels that it is the man from the previous evening.

The doctor called to examine the body is sure that it isn't a suicide; looking at the marks on the neck, he feels that it is a murder.  A second opinion confirms the diagnosis - it is murder.  Due to fog, it is a day later before DCI Ron Taylor and his crew from the mainland are able to get to the island.  Taylor makes an appeal through the national press in hopes of identifying the dead man.

The identity of the man is found out when Perez discovers the person who gave him a lift.  Taylor is also successful when a person who works for him identifies him through the press appeal.  Taylor travels to his home in Yorkshire to gather information on who he was.

Not long after this, a young man is found dead at the bottom of a cliff.  Coincidence? Accident?  Murder or suicide?  Perez is sure that it is murder, but what is the connection to the first killing?  When the murder scene is examined more closely, a human thigh bone is found.  Is this an older murder?  Perez has more questions than answers.

Author Anne Cleeves answers those questions in the remaining pages.  The answers are a surprise to the reader.  An engaging read, hard to put down.