Boston Police Officer Danny Sullivan has just gotten his promotion to Detective, something his father and grandfather never achieved in their careers. He, his wife, and his whole family are thrilled.
But his first case with his new, much more experienced partner, is a missing woman, a nurse at Boston Medical Center, who very shortly turns up dead. She had previously reported a prowler, but there is little evidence to go on. All the usual suspects, her boyfriend, her ex-husband, her coworkers, have alibis, and just don't seem good fits for what happened.
Then a second woman vanishes, and is soon found dead, in the same place the first woman's body was found. There's a superficial similarity, in height, dark eyes, dirty blonde hair. Both bodies, and the site they were left at, are remarkably "clean," the only possible clue being a single footprint, indicating that their killer may have been wearing boat shoes. Oh, and she'd reported a prowler recently, too.
When Danny takes it on himself to look at the last year's worth of prowler reports, he finds a recent large uptick--from women who have dark eyes and dirty blonde hair, who are about the same height as the two murder victims. When he begins to suspect that the killer could be a cop, he knows he's treading on very dangerous ground.
Danny's dilemma, as well as the strain on his wife, nine months pregnant and due any day now, from his long hours, is very well handled. What's also well handled is the setting. Often when a book is set in Boston, I wind up wincing every few minutes because what we get is Boston As Seen On TV, not the real city. I don't know whether Dalglish has a Boston background, or just does really good research, but nothing leaped out at me as wrong. The few times I even had a question, a few seconds on Google showed me that he'd gotten it right. (For instance, a parish in Southie that has changed its name in recent years, and a T station that's on a part of the system I've never used regularly.)
It's a good, solid, police procedural, with real tension and good characterization. On top of that, it gets a city I know and love right for a change!
I bought this audiobook.
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