The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey
Published by Ebury Press
7th November 2013
Paperback edition
Maeve Kerrigan is hunting the killer who strangled three women in their own homes. With no sign of a break-in, ever indication shows that they let him in.
Evidence left at the third murder gives Maeve a shocking suspect: DI Josh Derwent, Maeve’s colleague.
Maeve refuses to believe he could be involved, but how well does she really know him? Because this isn’t the first time Derwent’s been accused of murder…
The garden was quiet, the air still. As still as the girl who lay under the tree.
So still.
Her eyes were closed. Her hands lay by her sides, palms up. Her hair spread across the grass like yellow silk. And the flowers under her were like the stars above her.
He put out his hand and felt the heat radiating from her skin, even now. Even in the moonlight he could see the blood on her face, and the bruises around her neck, and the way her eyelids sagged, empty. Her eyes – her forget-me-not blue eyes – were gone. Her lip was split. Her face was swollen.
She was beautiful. No one would ever be as beautiful. She was perfect.
It surprised him, but he didn’t mind that she was dead. He could look at her, really look at her, without being interrupted. Without being afraid that she would say something, or do something, that might hurt him.
He could touch her. He reached out again, but stopped himself.
He could never touch her again.
His breath came faster. He wanted to touch himself but he couldn’t do that either. Not here.
It was just because he loved her so much. More than anyone. More than anything.
Forget-me-not.
‘I won’t forget,’ he promised. ‘I’ll never forget.’
He almost thought she smiled.
Jane Casey returns with her fourth Maeve Kerrigan novel, and this one doesn’t disappoint. We join Maeve shortly after her experience with a stalker; she has a new address, and a new man, but some things remain the same. Her relationship with DI Josh Derwent is as trying as ever, but both of them are going to have to change their attitudes if their careers are to survive. Three girls have been killed, and the similarity to a cold case from years ago is striking. Could the same killer be at work, and what is the connection with Derwent?
The rapport between Kerrigan and Derwent is as good as any police duo that you see on the television. They are both flawed characters but they work so well together, despite appearing, on the surface, to totally dislike each other. In The Stranger You Know this is pushed to its ultimate limit. Jane Casey has written a compelling page-turner that pulls you in many directions in order to work out who the serial killer could be, but again, it’s the relationships of her other characters that work equally as well, so that not only do you have a novel about solving crime, you also have one about human nature and of our relationships with each other.
This is my last review before the Christmas break, so can I wish you all a very merry Christmas and say thank you for supporting me in my new blogging venture. I hope Santa brings you all some great reads!
Happy Reading
Merry Christmas to you.
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