No Safe Place

Detective Superintendent Corrigan has been informed that there is a tumour on his optic nerve.  He is going on leave, but DI Lottie Parker is not going to be serving as his replacement.  That honour goes to DI McMahon, which does not go down well with Parker.

Frustrated, Parker attempts to leave the station, however before she can get away, a woman stops her and tells her of screaming out at the cemetery.  Parker takes DS Mark Boyd with her to check things out.  They are shocked to find a body in the bottom of a freshly dug grave.

Lightly buried is a young woman who had been reported missing 48 hours earlier.  Back at the station, Corrigan tells Parker that he remembers an earlier case of similar circumstances, which was never solved.

The next thing Parker finds out is that her witness has been badly beaten and threatened.

That evening, Boyd’s sister tells him that a girl she had met on the train the previous day didn’t show up.  He doesn’t make anything of it, but when DC Kirby and his girlfriend show up to report the same girl missing, he has to take notice.  Late that night another body is found.

A fire breaks out in the home of the witness, but unfortunately she is u able to get out with her baby.  Was the fire set to keep her from telling the police any more or was she killed because of mischief her husband was involved in?

It turns out that the body recently found is that of a missing woman from ten years ago, but she hadn’t been dead that long!  Parker’s life is about to slide into a shambles, and there is nothing she can do to stop that from happening.

Author Patricia Gibney’s closing pages of this murder thriller have several twists and surprises with an unusual conclusion.  This page turner is a very good read.