Deep Freeze

Rating:
Summary: strong British police procedural
Review: Deputy Chief inspector Michael Thackeray has finally taken the first stops towards making a new life with his lover Laura Ackroyd. He has filed for divorce from a wife who is confined to a mental institution with no hope of recovery, and he and Laura have moved in to a flat together. Although Laura would like a child with Michael, she dare not bring the subject up since he has never recovered from the tragic death of his own son.

When a thirteen year old girl is shot and killed on the steps of the May Anderson hospital after receiving an abortion, Michael and Laura both work the case albeit from different perspectives. When a nurse who works at the hospital is also killed, the police know there's a link because the same gun killed the two victims. Using their own resources, Laura and Michael come to the same conclusion about who the killer might be, but proving it to the point of an arrest remains difficult.

Patricia Hall writes some of the best British police procedurals on the market today. Her two protagonist are very independent individuals trying to make a life together while trying to cope with the baggage of their past. The who-done-it it is intricately complex with so many blind allies that readers will want to finish the book in one sitting to learn the identity of the perpetrator.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: strong British police procedural
Review: Deputy Chief inspector Michael Thackeray has finally taken the first stops towards making a new life with his lover Laura Ackroyd. He has filed for divorce from a wife who is confined to a mental institution with no hope of recovery, and he and Laura have moved in to a flat together. Although Laura would like a child with Michael, she dare not bring the subject up since he has never recovered from the tragic death of his own son.

When a thirteen year old girl is shot and killed on the steps of the May Anderson hospital after receiving an abortion, Michael and Laura both work the case albeit from different perspectives. When a nurse who works at the hospital is also killed, the police know there's a link because the same gun killed the two victims. Using their own resources, Laura and Michael come to the same conclusion about who the killer might be, but proving it to the point of an arrest remains difficult.

Patricia Hall writes some of the best British police procedurals on the market today. Her two protagonist are very independent individuals trying to make a life together while trying to cope with the baggage of their past. The who-done-it it is intricately complex with so many blind allies that readers will want to finish the book in one sitting to learn the identity of the perpetrator.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Gotta love Laura....
Review: Patricia Hall's latest novel about Yorkshire newspaper reporter Laura Ackroyd (apparently a Nicole Kidman lookalike) and her friend DCI Michael Thackery takes a sad turn in DEEP FREEZE. Hall has never shied away from tough subjects (she probably covered them as a reporter) and her latest novel continues this trend.

A young girl named Dana Smith is shot dead as she leaves the hospital where she recently had an abortion. Was she killed by an aggressive member of the anti-abortionist crowd badgering the clinic daily? Was her death simply another aspect of the crime wave being carried out against her gypsy family by local skinheads? Or, did her death have something to do with the fertility work underway at the clinic? Laura is a female reporter and thus never asked to write the "crime" story by her male chauvinist editor, but she soon turns her "woman's" piece into an investigation of suspicious medical practices, antagonistic anti-abortion activists, and unhappy ex-wives. Meanwhile, boyfriend Thackery has his own clues to pursue and his own ghosts to fight.

I have read Hall's books from the gitgo, I find her protagonists Laura and Thackery well developed. Hall also does a fine job of developing minor characters such as feisty grandmother Joyce Ackroyd, who turns up regularly to protest outrages against women; Val Ridley, the blonde cop who lusts after Kevin Mower her counterpart on the Bradford police force; and Kevin Mower who seems to be going off the deep end over his recent losses. To truly appreciate this series, including the current angst Mower is feeling, the reader should begin at the beginning. Reading Hall's books is akin following a good police/reporter series on tv. Hall is not into forensics, nor does she do graphic violence. Her plots are clever and her characterization is well done. This is exactly the kind of book her Grandmother Joyce would enjoy.