The Marquess Club Killings

Gritty!

Inspector Jemima Huxley has started back at work as a Detective Inspector with the Welsh police force after maternity leave. She expected to have a time to slot back into the team, not hit the ground running.
A high profile judge has been abducted, and it turns out that less than ten miles away another man had been abducted, except he’d died. Are the two linked?
As Jemima and her team investigate things don’t add up. It seems the judge belongs to an exclusive club that has within that an even smaller exclusive cadre of members.
What Jemima and her team discover is corruption in high places, spread across the police force, and powerful men who know no limits.
This book was slow to start. I almost gave up. That slow start was show more completely put behind me once the action took off and notched up to high gear.

A Joffe Books ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher. show less

procedural, law-enforcement, serial-murder, series, Wales, noir, abduction, gangsters, judiciary, psychological-thriller, suspense, department-politics, investigations, crime-fiction, relationships, relatives, *****

It's hard enough to come back to The Job after a year away on maternity leave, but to come back as a DI and immediately be thrown into a pair of (possibly) connected weird incidents is daunting. I find that this is book 5 in series, but that didn't leave me behind at all. I felt that the mildly irregular pacing allowed me to catch my breath after something astounding occurred. Each character is unique and certainly credible. A very good procedural!
I requested and received an EARC from Joffe Books via NetGalley. Thank you!