Above Suspicion
ISBN: 9781849834339
Description
Young Anna Travis has been assigned to her first murder case - a series of killings that has shocked even the most hardened of detectives. They started eight years ago - now the body count is up to six. The method of killing is identical, the backgrounds of the girls identical - all drug-users and prostitutes. Then a seventh body is found. The modus operandi is the same - but the victim is a young student with the 'face of an angel'. The profile of the murderer has changed dramatically. Determined to earn the respect of her male colleagues, Anna stumbles on a vital piece of information which links one man to the killings, a much-loved actor on the brink of international stardom. His arrest would create a media frenzy. But if he were found innocent, his wouldn't be the only career over - Anna's hard fought for reputation would be destroyed once and for all.
Reviewed on 30th May 2013
The first Anna Travis story sees the young detective sergeant assigned to her first murder case, investigating a series of seemingly connected crimes. The novel is gripping though quite graphic in places, and there's perhaps too much flipflopping.
The characters are interesting, although a large quantity of the supporting cast go unexplored, with the focus being on just three characters. While these three are well developed, the reader spends the majority of the story aligned with Anna Travis, whose emotions seem to flicker around from one thing to another with much greater frequency than seems plausible.
The narrative follows an interesting course, and it's certainly not in the form of a whodunnit, being much more psychological. The opening and ending surprised me by being quite graphic compared to the rest of the story, but not too much to put me off.
This was the first of Lynda La Plante's novels that I've read, and while I thought the style was fairly rough I'm certainly planning to return for more.
