The Red Dahlia

DI Anna Travis has been called out to a murder scene.  There she finds DCI Glen Morgan and several other detectives.  The body of the woman is in worse shape than she anticipated it would be.  Five days after the body was found, it was identified by her roommate.  They could now start the hunt for the killer.

Unfortunately for Morgan’s team, he is hospitalised with a bleeding ulcer and DCI James Langton is assigned the task of heading up the murder team.  The press called it the case of the red dahlia and compared it to one in America.  They are good enough to help the police in their quest to find the tall dark man the victim had been seeing.

Travis discovers a book on the American killing and having read it, shows it to Langton.  The similarities show that they have a copy cat killer on their hands.  Langton brings in a profiler, but Travis isn’t impressed by Professor Marshe because everything she said had already been discussed by the team.

Two weeks in, the killer sends possessions of the victim to a newspaper.  A few days later he is threatening to kill again, having sent a note directly to Langton.  On the eighteenth day, the roommate of the victim is found brutally murdered.

Unfortunately for Travis, her journalist lover takes advantage of her knowledge and publishes it; knowledge that only the killer would know.

By the twenty-second day they have a possible suspect.  But how can they prove that he is the killer?  With only circumstantial evidence, they have nothing.  Can the team gather the evidence to catch a killer or will the killer go free as happened in the American case?

Author Lynda La Plante’s murder mystery is full of suspense, tension and excitement.  This novel is a page turner and hard to put down.  I highly recommend it.