Detectives and forensic scientists are the focus of so many new books and television programmes at the moment it is refreshing to read an exciting 'who dunnit' with a very different lead character. MR Hall's, latest crime novel, the Burning, is the latest in his series featuring Coroner Jenny Cooper.
Author, and former Criminal Barrister, Matthew Hall is also a BAFTA nominated TV scriptwriter for Judge John Deeds and Kavanagh QC amongst others. He lives in the Wye Valley and this series of books is also set in this area. The Burning features many places or names which seemed familiar but as this tale is set mainly in Tintern and Bristol area I also recognised many aspects of those places, which I know well.
A dense, bitterly cold fog has settled over the Wye Valley when Bristol Coroner Jenny Cooper is called to the scene of a dreadful tragedy: in the village of Blackstone Ley, a house has burned to the ground with three members of a family inside.
Though evidence of foul play is quickly uncovered, it isn't long before the police investigation is drawn to a close. It seems certain that the fire was started by one of the victims, Ed Morgan, in a fit of jealous rage. Their infant son still missing, Ed had left a message for his surviving wife, Kelly Hart, telling her that she would never find the child.
But as Jenny prepares the inquest, she finds herself troubled by the official version of events and wonders about the connection to the mysterious abduction of a little girl from the same village ten years before.
Jenny soon becomes entangled in another perplexing inquiry that may have surprising links to this one. Can she unearth Blackstone Ley's secrets, before it's too late?
Having a Coroner as the key investigative character in his novels opens up a different aspect of the justice system which many people are unaware of and made a change from grim Scandinavian detectives or gruesome pathology reports. I thought this was a cracking good tale, told from a female perspective. I enjoyed meeting the central character, Jenny, and felt Hall had created a convincing female role model, tough enough to cope with the male dominated work she is central to, Jenny is also a vulnerable character with aspects of her own history lending a depth to her observations and the way she deals with her work.