Review: Hillary's Back!

Hillary's Back! by Faith Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Spoiler alert in regards to Hillary's private life--in first paragraph. No spoilers about the mystery to be solved.

And we're glad she is. Wendy and Jimmy are gone, so Hillary has a new team, Claire, like Hillary a retired DI, and Gareth, a wounded warrior home from Afganistan. Rollo is her immediate boss, but heartbreakingly, Stephen is dead. That was the most surprising and most disappointing aspect of this outing. Hillary and Stephen had moved in together in the last book . I was so looking forward to seeing how their relationship developed and, instead, he is barely mentioned. Somehow, this lack of acknowledgement makes Hillary seem rather heartless. So much was made of her wracking her brains and nerves to decide to commit to him, even if she wouldn't marry him as he wanted, and now he doesn't even appear in her thoughts as she goes about the business of solving this latest mystery.

But, it is 18 months since his success in putting the big drug lord away caused his to have two massive heart attacks one after the other, leading to immediate death of a man in his 40's. Hillary has just returned to work after taking leave and is faced with a cold case in which a young 20 year old drug dealer/petty criminal was found stabbed to death in the woods behind his home. His enemies are many and the clues are few. Still, with dogged investigation and leaving no small bit of gossip unacknowledged, Hillary and team get their murderer. Convoluted as always, lots of dead ends and false leads to keep the reader on his toes and turning the pages. Only one loose end--did Jason have anything to do with the murder in Reading--not very clear on that one.

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