Critical Incidents

Robin Lyons #1

by Lucie Whitehouse

A missing girl.
A murdered friend.
No one left to trust.
A Birmingham house fire. A young mother dead. The main suspect? Her husband – but he’s disappeared.

A young woman has also disappeared but the police don’t seem concerned. Desperate, her mother turns to a less official channel for help.

That less official channel? Former DCI Robin Lyons. Once a high-flyer in Homicide Command at the met, she’s been sacked for misconduct and forced home to Birmingham broke and disgraced.

She thinks she’s hit rock bottom, but she’s about to learn there’s much further to fall. Because the mother who died was Robin’s best friend – and she will risk everything to get to the truth.

Genres: Crime, Thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook, Book Club

388 pages, Hardcover

First published April 4, 2019

About the author

Lucie Whitehouse was born in the Cotswolds in 1975 and grew up in Warwickshire. She studied Classics at Oxford University and then began a career in publishing while spending evenings, weekends and holidays working on the book that would eventually become THE HOUSE AT MIDNIGHT.

Having married in 2011, she now divides her time between the UK and Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband. She writes full time and has contributed features to the Times, the Sunday Times, the Independent, Elle and Red Magazine.

Reviews

[Louise Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dismissed for misconduct from the Met's Homicide Command after refusing to follow orders, Robin had no choice but to take her teenage daughter Lennie and move back in with her parents. Robin now works as a benefit-fraud investigator. It's only her best friend Corinna that seems happy to see Robin back. But when Corinna's family is engulfed by violence and her missing husband becomes a murder suspect, Robin can't stand idly by while the police investigate.

There are a lot of characters in this book and I found myself forgetting who some of them were. It's also a bit of a slow burner. The final third of the book is where it starts to get a bit better. There are three different cases and some jumping back and forward from present to past. We already know that this is the first book in anew series, but the conclusion to the story only confirms this. I will read the next book when it's published.

I would like to thank NetGalley, HarperCollins UK, 4th Estate and the author Lucie Whitehouse for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robin has been dismissed from her job at Scotland Yard after failing to follow orders. She and her daughter Lennie move in with her parents and Robin gets job helping Maggie a family friend with her private investigations.

Robin is not happy to be back at home in her old bedroom, sharing a bunk bed with her daughter. Things take a turn for the worse when her best friend Corinna’s family is hit by tragedy and her missing husband is accused of murder.

Robin and Maggie are investigating the disappearance of a missing teenager and the death of Corinna. It was interesting as Robin does not have the power of her police I.D badge to investigate the cases, but she is stubbornly determined to find the truth even if it could endanger herself or her family!!


I loved this book, it took me a while to get into the characters and then I was hooked. Pleased to see this is the first in a series and will definitely be looking out for her next.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review

[Mandy White (mandylovestoread) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Critical Incidents by Lucie Whitehouse was a book that I was really looking forward to, unfortunately it fell a bit flat for me. It is the first book by this writer that I have heard a lot about. I loved the sound of the story but found it hard to keep track of so many different characters and timelines. It was a bit slow in parts and I struggled to stay with it even though It was a great story overall.

DI Robin Lyons has been suspended from the Met for refusing to follow orders and has to move back home to her parents with her teenage daughter Lennie. One good thing about the situation is that she is close to her best friend Corinna again. She begins working with another friend as a benefit fraud investigator. But then Corrine is killed in a fire and her husband disappears and is now a murder suspect. She sets out to prove him innocent but the more she investigates the more she wonders how well she know people at all.

Thanks to Harper Collins UK, 4th Estate and Netgalley for my advanced copy of this book to read. All opinions are my own and are in no way biased.

[Cassie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book did not engage me in any way. There are far too many characters who are really difficult to keep track of. I would find myself staring into the distance trying to remember who was who, and where they were coming into things.

There are at least 3 different plotlines (there may be more that I lost through the confusion) and this didn’t help with my struggle to figure things out.

Oh, and it dragged.

I think, I would say that I probably enjoyed the last 13% but again, things were resolved a bit too quickly and cleanly for me.


Robin Lyons and her 13 year old daughter move to Birmingham. Back to Robins childhood home.
Robin is newly fired from her role of DI in the Met and Robin has had no choice but to go home while she tries to get on her feet again.
Unhappily, Robin does not get on particularly well with her mother but at least Robin’s best friend will be close.

Until the best friends house catches fire, she dies, her son is in a coma and the local police are sure that the husband is the culprit.

Robin is sure that her friends husband is innocent and desperate to clear his name, find out who is truly responsible for the death of her best friend.

Unfortunately, Robin seems to be rubbing everyone up the wrong way. Nobody is happy and Robin is trying to keep her balls in the air and keep everyone happy.

I’m assuming that this is going to become a series but I won’t be reading anymore.

I have given this book 2 stars on Goodreads.

[Karen]

I've enjoyed previous books by this author but conceded defeat just under halfway through this one which appears to be the first in a new series. Sadly there was nothing about the main character of DCI Robin Lyons and the other characters (of which there were far too many to keep track of) or the two plot strands that grabbed my interest enough to make me want to continue. So, on the basis of too many books, so little time......this just wasn't a book for me although it's had good reviews from others.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book reviews on ww.snazzybooks.com

This is a powerhouse of a novel!

It took me a little while to get into, due to what felt like a lot of character names to get to grips with, but once I did I was completely hooked!

DI Robin Lyons is a brilliant character who I really warmed to. She makes mistakes and has flaws, which makes her so much more human and personable. She also stands up for what she believes in – to start with, she’s been suspended from the Met for refusing to follow orders from her boss because she was convinced that they’d be going after the wrong man. She ends up working with her mother’s friend, who is a private investigator, to make ends meet when she has to move away from London back to her childhood city of Birmingham. The contrast between her previous life and her new one is interesting to read about too.

Critical Incidents has several parallel storylines, all of which are interesting, but I particularly enjoyed the one closest to Robin’s heart – what really happened to her best friend Corinna, and her missing husband? It’s quite a complex plot; there’s a lot is going on, but it works.

I always enjoy police procedurals, but because Robin is no longer with the police we get to see a fresh take on the format. Robin may know how things are done in the Met, but she has to find workarounds in her new investigative role as she can’t rely on the access she used to have as a DI. She also doesn’t have the same automatic level of authority, so it’s interesting to read how she tries to overcome that as she works with Maggie to try and solve various cases.

I loved this novel and, from that ending, I’m very much hoping it’s the start of a brilliant new series!

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Setting: Birmingham and London, UK. In what I understand to be the first of a new crime series, Lucie Whitehouse has changed genre slightly from psychological thriller to crime procedural. Former Met. Police DI Robin Lyons has returned to her home town of Birmingham in disgrace having been dismissed for gross misconduct. All is not rosy for her return - she has had to uproot her teenage daughter from her friends and public school; her brother Luke is a constant thorn in her side; her former boyfriend is now head of Homicide in Birmingham. The only bright spots on the horizon for Robin are her best friends, married couple Corinne and Josh, and a job with family friend Maggie who owns a detective agency investigating benefit and insurance frauds and missing persons. Robin's first case with Maggie is the search for a missing young woman on behalf of the mother but, just as the investigation starts, a disaster strikes Corinne's family and her husband goes missing. Despite not being in the police, Robin's temperament and determination to find the truth drives her to make her own investigations, putting herself and her family in danger....
This was an excellent introduction to what I hope to be a long-running series - great characters and I look forward to what Robin decides following on from the epilogue, hopefully not too long in the writing!! - 9/10.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to follow.

[Lee at ReadWriteWish · Rating 4 out of 5]

After refusing to arrest a known criminal for a murder she believes he didn’t commit, Robin is sacked from her position as head of homicide at the Met (pending an appeal). Broke, she agrees to go to work for an old family friend, Maggie, who runs a private investigation company specialising in insurance fraud in Birmingham. Robin, and her 13 year old daughter, also moves back in with her parents for the duration.

Robin is also hitting some low points when it comes to her personal life. She and her mother have always had a prickly relationship and the thing Robin finds to be cheery about is that she’ll get to see her best friend, Corrina, more often now she’s returned home. However, at the same time as Robin and Maggie are investigating the disappearance of a young girl, Corrina is murdered.

Robin, of course, investigates both cases throughout the book. I thought both ended up being quite clever mystery plots. For the majority of the book the cases seemed completely unrelated and quite unsolvable. I really had no idea about who might have carried out the crimes, or even if there was a crime when it came to the missing girl, at any time whilst reading. I always think I guess something in these types of books but this time -- zero. As it turned out, I guessed not even the smallest thing regarding either case nor their resolution. The twists and the couple of bombshells that are revealed towards the end of the book (after being hinted at throughout) were quite unexpected.

I love the English feel to this book. Its setting makes it that very gritty Jane Tennison type book rather than the usual flashy American police thriller. Robin and the mess she makes of everything seems very real.

The English also have a knack of adding racial diversity to their books (and movies etc) effortlessly. Even though Whitehouse has added these characters without a song and dance, she still manages to highlight racism as well as women’s rights (rape culture and forced prostitution especially) -- again, with a subtle hand.

I must admit I agree with some other reviewers that there are a few too many characters. Occasionally I felt like I needed a spreadsheet to keep them all straight. I also didn’t see the point to a couple of them until I read that the book is the first in a series. (I had thought it was standalone.)

The ending is not a huge cliffhanger but it did make me wonder enough for me to say I’ll probably be reading number two when it’s released.

One thing that did annoy me about the book, and probably added to the general difficulty of keeping all the characters straight, was Whitehouse’s style when it came to naming Robin’s parents. Instead of Robin just calling them mum and dad in her mind, she calls them Christine and Dennis. If they were simply ‘mum’ ‘dad’ or ‘her parents’ even, I’d have taken less time trying to think just who Christine and Dennis were again.

I was thinking that maybe the book should have been written in Robin’s first person point of view to ease some of the problems with the characters.

Out of this plethora of supporting characters, I probably enjoyed Robin’s ex-boyfriend who is now head of the Birmingham police the most. I look forward to Whitehouse continuing to explore his and Robin’s relationship in future books.

If I had to mark the book down on anything else it would be its length. I just felt it went on for a touch too long. Some parts of it could have been wrapped up a bit quicker.

Overall though, I really enjoyed it and would recommend it for those who enjoy English police procedurals. 4 out of 5

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong start to a new series... 4 stars

Robin Lyons has been dismissed from her job as detective inspector in the Met for disobeying orders and releasing a man her superior believed to have committed a murder because her instinct told her he was innocent. She intends to appeal the dismissal but in the meantime she has to find some other source of income to support herself and her teenage daughter, Lennie. So she’s on her way home to Birmingham, to live with her parents and to work for an old family friend, Maggie, another ex-police officer who now investigates insurance and benefit fraud, and occasionally other things. The first case Robin becomes involved in is the disappearance of a young woman whose frantic mother can’t get the local police to take the matter seriously. But then a crime much closer to home occurs, when Robin’s best friend Corinna is killed and her husband Josh goes missing. Robin can’t help wondering if it’s related to what happened ‘that day’ many years ago, so finds herself doing a bit of investigation into Corinna’s death too.

This book contains some of the features that have made me increasingly unenthusiastic about contemporary crime fiction in the last few years. There’s the ubiquitous ‘that day’ feature, when the crime involves something from the past coming back to haunt the present, but the reader isn’t told what actually happened in the past until the story is almost over, in a bid to create false suspense. There’s the utterly tedious casual swearing which serves no purpose. (It made me laugh that in fact at one point Robin, who never knowingly uses an alternative where the f-word will do, is appalled by the casual swearing of the kids in the local high school and wonders why standards have fallen so badly – yeah, possibly because every book teenagers read is full of swearing maybe? Just a thought...) There’s the personal involvement of the detective with the crime, meaning we have to hear an awful lot about Robin’s grief over the death of her friend – never entertaining to me. And the book is roughly a hundred pages too long for the story it contains, meaning there’s a lot of unnecessary filler in there.

However, there are a lot of good things about it too. The story is interesting and, despite being overlong, the pacing is good so that it didn’t drag through the mid-section. It’s very well written, both in terms of the descriptive writing and the believable dialogue. Third person, past tense – a big hurrah from me for that! I thought Whitehouse’s depiction of her Birmingham setting was excellent, giving a real feel for the physical city and for the culture of what is probably the most racially diverse city in Britain outside London, with a huge and long-established Asian community. Happily, Whitehouse shows that, while racism still rears its ugly head on occasion, the majority of the citizens rub along fine together enjoying the added richness of a mixed culture. I found it a convincing and positive portrayal.

The characterisation is a mix. There are too many minor characters to keep track of and they never come to life, so that whenever one was mentioned I had to pause to try to remember who they were and how they fitted into the story. However, the major characters are very well developed, especially Robin and her parents. Robin is hard to like, opinionated, somewhat selfish and convinced that she knows better than everyone else. This is the first in a series, though, and it’s reasonably clear Robin is on a learning curve – that her recent troubles are giving her a level of self-awareness she’s never had till now. The tension between her and her mother is particularly well done – two women who annoy each other as much as they love each other, but who now have a chance to build a better relationship... or a worse one.

Overall, despite a few weaknesses, I enjoyed this and thought it was well above average. This one reads like a private eye novel, but the series is billed as a police procedural so I anticipate that future books will see Robin back in harness. First books in series are always tricky since so much introduction and backstory is necessary, but I felt Whitehouse handled those aspects very well, creating some characters I will be happy to meet again. Recommended – a series I look forward to following.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, 4th Estate at HarperCollins.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Jenna Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first in a new detective series by Lucie Whitehouse, this story starts as Robin returns home to her parent’s house in Birmingham after being let go by the Met when she refused to arrest someone she didn’t believe was guilty. Robin starts working for family friend Maggie, who happens to be a Private Investigator.

As Robin is working on 2 current cases, plus the original case in London, there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but once you have got your head round who is who, the story picks up pace and you won’t be able to put the book down. There are many twists and turns and you won’t know where the cases are going next.

As for the ending, I can’t wait for the next book to find out what happens next!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book.

[Joana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing better than a female-driven mystery/crime novel for a holiday, in my opinion. This was really good.

[Joy Perino · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this. It sounded like my kind of thing, but I just could not get into it. The setting was dreary, the characters failed to capture my imagination, the background, the mysterious past 'thing' that set events in motion, the murder that has to be investigated - all just felt a bit too uninteresting.

So I gave up. I hate giving up on books, but I just did not love this one enough to carry on. Sorry, author.

[Vix S · Rating 4 out of 5]

To begin with, I was a bit overwhelmed by the host of characters, but they all played a crucial part in what turned out to be a really brilliant crime drama. I hope it’s the first of many in a series - I’d love to hear more from Robin & co. A welcome return for Lucie Whitehouse - hope she doesn’t leave it so long next time!

[Tracy Fenton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Critical Incidents is the first book in a series featuring DI Robin Lyons and I am delighted to be taking part in a blogtour promotion reading each book in this series over the course of the next few months. My thanks to Orion and Fourth Estate for my copies of the books.

So, let’s have a look at Critical Incidents: Set in London and Birmingham, we meet Detective Inspector Robin Lyons. Recently fired from the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide Department for not being able to follow orders, she and her teenage daughter Lennie are forced to return home to Birmingham to move back in with her parents.

Having always had a difficult relationship with her mother, Robin doesn’t plan on staying in Birmingham for long, just long enough to get back on her feet financially and hopefully get re-instated with the Met. In the meantime, she and daughter Lennie have to shared her cramped childhood bedroom, sleep in bunkbeds and bite her tongue until she is able to get away. It also doesn’t help that Lennie has had to leave her private school and friends mid-term and enrol in the rough local comprehensive and Robin is temporarily working as a benefit-fraud investigator for her mother’s best friend.

The only glimmer of hope in this sorry situation it that Robin’s BFF, Corinna, her husband and young son still live in Birmingham so they can spend more time together. However, when Corinna is killed in a fire, her 10 year old son Peter is in a coma and her husband has disappeared and is now a murder suspect Robin’s determined to investigate this case and find out the truth, despite no longer being part of the police.

I really became invested in Robin, despite not being the easiest of characters to like at the beginning. She’s a hard woman with high emotional walls which are difficult to break down, but the more we learn about Robin and her background, the more we can begin to understand why she is emotionally cut off from everyone.

With a multitude of characters, Critical Incidents is a gripping page-turner with several storylines all cleverly weaved together and I am thrilled that I already have the next book in the series all lined up on my kindle read to read.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Karen Barber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Our main character, Robin, has been fired from her position on the Met for not following orders and allowing a suspect to go free as she was convinced he was innocent. With her young daughter in tow, Robin heads back to Birmingham to stay with her parents and try to salvage things.
Within days of going home, her best friend is murdered and the husband is a suspect. Again, convinced of his innocence (which has something to do with a secret in their past) Robin starts her own investigation.
There’s a lot of strands to this, and some of the links are hard to credit. However, the character is an interesting one and I’m certainly curious to see how she’s developed. Robin is not without her flaws, but she is trying hard and seems to be coming from a place that people can identify with.
Robin learns a lot about herself and her friends during the course of this story. Some areas are definitely uncomfortable and I was somewhat taken back by the links established. However, by the end of the book there was a clear sense that things were moving in the right direction.
Thanks to NetGalley for granting me access to this prior to publication in exchange for my thoughts.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I need more. Oh gosh do I need more. That last page? How could you just leave it there! Argh! Thankfully this looks like the beginning of a series and I think I'll really enjoy reading onwards.

That said, the book is definitely a bit of a slow-burn read. I found I had to stick a post-it note on the case of my Kindle and write characters down as I went to try to keep everyone straight as there were 3 different cases and some switching between the past and present throughout. I found that I was really gripped on the novel by the final third. The main character, Robin, can be a little grating at times in my opinion but I quite liked her and found myself agreeing with her point of view a lot of the time as she really seems like a woman who was trying her best with all the circumstances she had. It's nothing really original in terms of a mystery/thriller book, many of which have similar elements out there, but I'd say this is a pretty solid one to be released this year. Some of these elements are slightly cliche and I would like to see a new spin on things, but y'know what? I enjoyed it. Solid 4 stars from me. Good job all around! What can I say? I love a crime novel.

https://heyannarld.wordpress.com/2019...

[Bookread2day · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read many of Lucie Whitehouse books. My favourite books by Lucie are The House at Midnight and The Bed I Made.

Critical Incidents may have switched its audience slighty this time round, with intelligent DI Robin Lyons who gets fired, as her boss wanted to charge a man with murder he didn’t commit just because he was bad and the public would be better off if he was inside. But outspoken DI Robin Lyons didn’t quite agree with that and she said so and why not, surely she has a right to her opinion? Off course a boss doesn’t like it if you don’t agree with them and she got fired just for that. Then comes a house fire, a missing girl. A murdered friend. For fans of Lucy Whitehouse you need to read this one.

[Claire - TheBookendReviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Critical Incidents follows former DCI Robin Lyons who has been fired from her job in the Homicide department of the Met Police. She has to move back him to Birmingham to live with her parents, teenage daughter in tow. A family friend provides her with an investigative job, leading her to search for a missing young woman. Tragedy also strikes close to home and Robin is forced to evaluate her thoughts and feelings of those she once held dear.

The mystery of these cases keep you guessing right until the end, there's intrigue, secrets, lies and murder. What more could you ask for?

I'm looking forward to following Robin in future books, I know the next is currently being written!

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of this book. It drew me in from the first page and didn't let go until the end. The story took many turns and one twist in particular hit me like a sledgehammer, I will be recommending it to everyone I know.

[Erin Devitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a little while to get into it. There were lots of characters and cases to keep track of so often got confused on who was who and who was relevant to what cases. However I’d say about two-thirds in I really got into it and acc understood what was going on. As I thought the story was coming to an end there was a plot twist thrown in so was defo on edge for the last 20 pages!!

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure at first if a change of genre to the usual books I read would be for me. I was surprised how it kept drawing me in, through its characters, story line and locations.

[Claire lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book it was ease to read the first part of setting the scene was a little long winded but you needed it. Once it start to move at a faster pace I really enjoyed this.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've enjoyed Whitehouse before but for an established author this feels messy and unpaced, as if it's still at draft stage and needs polishing and finalising.

There's too much of Robin's messy personal life for my taste, both her long and short-term past history and her own secrets and connection to the central crime. Things are slow, slow, slow, then there's a flurry of revelations at the end.

The thing is, there are so many police series out there now with a female protagonist and a messy personal life, that it's hard to stand out unless the writing is immaculate and the characters step alive off the page - neither happened here for me.

[Electra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rarement aurais-je été autant intriguée par une couverture ! J'ai toujours eu envie de le lire et j'ai eu la chance de le faire et mon verdict est positif. Je vous en parle très bientôt. Décidément, mon année commence avec de très bons polars. Je reviens avec une critique plus longue et une note - je dois juste rédiger mon billet à présent !

[Joanna Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been a huge fan of this author since I read her first book when it was featured on Richard and Judy’s book club, so I was very excited to be offered an early copy of her latest book to read. I was not disappointed as this was another engrossing and thoroughly intriguing read.

This book has quite a complicated plot in that there is a few different threads running alongside each other so there is always lots going on. I didn’t find this overly confusing though and found it quite easy to follow each story as it develops.

The most interesting part of this book for me was the way the reader gets to follow the main character Robin both through her investigation but also in her home life and her difficult move back home following her suspension. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of Robin’s relationship with her mother which was definitely a complicated one as they drive each other mad but still love each other and want a better relationship between them. I have to admit to not being a huge fan of Robin’s at the start as I found her very opinionated and quite a selfish person who always thinks she knew best which meant it took a while for me to warm to her.

This is a slightly unusual police procedural as due to her suspension Robin isn’t able to have access to certain things and isn’t able to command the same authority in her investigation. It was very interesting to see her try to adapt and change how she works.

I thought this was a very well written book which had lots going on to keep the reader interested. The tension is slowly built up until the book becomes almost impossible to put down. There are lots of twist which I thought were very cleverly thought out and took me by surprise which I always enjoy. I will definitely look forward to reading more of this intriguing new series.

Huge thanks to Martina from Midas PR for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book.

[Grace J Reviewerlady · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a novel with plenty going to keep the reader's attention glued to the pages, and there's no doubt in my mind that it's going to be an exciting series to follow!

Having been fired from her job with the Met, single parent Robin Lyons is forced to return to live with her parents, teenage daughter in tow. Whilst it's not ideal as Robin and her mother have always had a fraught relationship, it's a roof over their heads whilst she gets her act together. Working as a fraud investigator, Robin finds herself involved in a different kind of detective work, but when a house fire occurs at her best friend's home with deadly consequences it affect Robin badly, especially with the friend's husband going awol.

This is one book where you cannot risk losing your focus; so much going on! I really appreciated that there were so many characters and intertwining story lines - far too often it's obvious where things are going in novels but it's not something which happens here. I really needed to keep my wits about me whilst reading this one, but the rewards are huge; this is such a fantastic read! Involving friends, family, colleagues and with so many different strands, it is a gripping, riveting read and without doubt author Lucie Whitehouse has earned every one of the five sparkling stars I'm happy to give it. I hope the next one in series follows on quickly!

[Emma (escapetothebookshelf) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really good detective story; it was complex and twisted and I couldn't wait for the plot to unravel. The story follows Robin Lyons who was a DCI in the Homicide department of the Met Police but has since been fired from her job. Struggling to still live in London, she moves back to her parents in Birmingham with her daughter and she's lucky enough for a family friend to provide her with an investigative job. As part of the job she's working on a case of a missing woman, but at the same time, one of Robin's best friends tragically dies in a fire and Robin of course wants to know what really happened.

This was a well thought out story, but for me it was almost a little too complicated throughout, with a too simple resolution. It was almost impossible to come up with a guess as to what was going on because there were so many facts and characters involved. Unfortunately, this meant that a lot of things were red herrings or just irrelevant and so I was a little disappointed with the resolution. I did however think that the writing style was good and easy to read, and I was still gripped and intrigued by the story. I would still try another of her books.

Thanks to Tandem Collective for a free copy of this book in exchange for a review.

[Mary Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Robin Lyons loses her job in the Met, she is forced to give up her London flat and move home to her parents in Birmingham. Returning, now with a teenage daughter of her own, to the tense atmosphere she abandoned for college life fifteen years ago is almost impossible to bear.
It helps when a family friend gives her temporary work as a PI, but things get complicated when the sudden death of an old friend comes under investigation by the local police.
I liked the gothic tension in The Bed I Made, which I read some years back, and I liked this one too. I liked the character of Robin and while there were a lot of characters to get to grips with, concentration paid off. The story was a little different and the family situation and facing up to self-deficiencies was dealt with knowledgably.
This looks like a series worth sticking with.
With thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK 4th estate

[Katharine Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a big fan of Lucie Whitehouse’s writing I was delighted to get the chance to read this book. While it’s different from her domestic noir stories, it’s a compelling read and a strong start to a police series.
The characters are vividly drawn, multi-faceted and believable, especially Robin who is flawed, determined, principled and likeable. The story was cleverly structured with twists and turns, and kept me guessing. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good police drama. My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy.