Police Procedural

A homeless man is discovered dead in Bristol’s park-like Clifton Downs. End of the story, right? Not if you are DS Cross, who “was always drawn to cases like this. Cases of the dispossessed. The outsider. He related to them because in many ways he was one himself.” Cross has Asperger’s syndrome, and unlike his peers, he is slow to write off the victim. Indeed, his persistence, his dogged examination of all the details, and his reexamination of the evidence manage to keep the case alive—traits that serve the victim but set his fellow officers on edge, ready to wrap up the case. Say what they want, Cross has the best conviction rate of his precinct by a long shot. In seeking to resolve the murder of the homeless man, Cross realizes he needs to go back to a cold case from 15 years ago, despite the scorn he receives from his boss and peers. Socially awkward detectives are nothing new, but Sullivan goes deep into Cross’s self and his struggle to identify the personalities of others: he combines physical expressions with tone to make inferences. The publishing history of this series is extraordinarily confusing, but we know for certain that Grove is publishing the first three books in the series, as well as The Tailor, the eighth, in October. Order multiple copies, there should be a big audience for Cross, both those with Aspergers who rarely see themselves depicted with any accuracy and fans of police dramas like Tana French, Donna Leon, and Louise Penny.

Characters of all sorts and types, many unpleasant at best, fill the pages of this, the 22nd Inspector Lynley novel. There is a complicated scheme to buy the land or mineral rights in an area of Cornwall to mine lithium. The sleazy agent of the mining company finds the murdered body of Michael Lobb, tin craftsman and major holdout to the plan, and thus begins the search…for the weapon, for the motive, for the truth of the matter that forms the rest of the skillfully built puzzle that makes up the book. Bea Hannaford is in charge of the case (old friend Lynley doesn’t show up until much later) and focuses on Kayla, the the very much younger wife of Michael; his ex-wife; and his grown children as suspects. The story is eerily filled in by Michael himself in chapters interspersed with those on on the investigation. Even though all the alleys, many blind, are followed, it is the tiny pieces and astonishing happenstance that bring everything to a factual, reasonable end, with Lindley of course providing wisdom. After all this time, it’s gratifying to see how the author can take this tangled skein of a story and piece it out to a smooth conclusion.