Murder, She Reads

First Thoughts: Not quite as fast paced as I was hoping, but it was a good crime novel.

This is my first novel by British author Jane Casey and her series with DC Kerrigan. All though at times it had me a little confused and the pacing wasn’t as fast as I would have hoped I still enjoyed it enough to try another novel.

DC Kerrigan is the only woman on The Burning Man case and she takes a lot of crap from her teammates. When a new victim shows up but the MO is just a little off from The Burning Man, Superintendent Godley wants Kerrigan to take it on. Godley and Kerrigan are the only two who think that it could be a copy cat killer. DCI Judd, doesn’t see it that way and he is not a fan of Kerrigan’s so he pretty much tells her to do what ever but he didn’t think she was going to find anything.

Kerrigan tries her best to get into the victim, Rebecca’s life. When her and a colleague goes to check out Rebecca’s house they find her friend Louise cleaning it up. This pretty much ruins any chance of getting an idea of what Rebecca’s last moments at her home where like. She interviews Louise, Rebecca’s ex-boyfriend and anyone else who had contact with her. It leads Kerrigan all the way back to something tragic happening to when Rebecca and Louise when to Oxford.

Piece by piece she tries to put the pieces together and find out what happened to Rebecca and keep one foot in on The Burning Man case as well. One of her colleagues Rob helps her a little with the case and we find out that he likes her a bit. Though some times he doesn’t really show it but I think it’s because he doesn’t want the other guys to know he is crushing on Kerrigan, but it lends a little romance to the story.

It didn’t really pick up for me until about 7o% into the story and at first I was a little confused about why we were getting Louise’s point of view as well as Kerrigan’s. After a while I sort of put things together and got an idea on why we were getting her POV but at first it was a bit confusing and well a bit boring. For the most part I liked DC Kerrigan and would be interested in reading the next novel in the series. I’m not a big fan of Rob yet but if he isn’t such a jerk in the next book he could grow  on me, but right now I don’t see what Kerrigan finds in him. I couldn’t stand DCI Judd and Superintendent Godley was okay but at time still acts like a male chauvinist pig like DCI Judd.

If your into British crime stories then you will probably enjoy this one.