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"The smile froze on Judy's lips as she heard the scream. It seemed to come from the direction in which she had just walked; she retraced her steps, and saw the girl she had seen earlier, standing by the willow tree, by the pram, her hands to her mouth. 'She's gone!' the girl said. 'The baby's gone.'" In an isolated cottage a woman has been bludgeoned to death; outside, a man has been crushed by a car, uttering the word 'intruder' before losing consciousness. That, and a row overheard earlier show more that morning, is all Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd has to go on. Who is the dead woman? Where's her handbag? If it was a burglary, why the extreme violence? A house-removal is in progress, but were the couple moving in or moving out? Were they a couple? Who was having the argument? If it was a domestic, why is the handbag missing? Who was the intruder? Was there an intruder? Who rang 999? Was it a love triangle? Who was driving the car found abandoned a mile away? Questions without answers, and Lloyd is short-handed; a baby has disappeared from Malworth, and DS Tom Finch has joined the team urgently searching for leads. Lloyd doesn't yet know how deeply involved in that enquiry Judy Hill, still on maternity leave, has become, nor how profoundly it will affect both her and his own murder investigation . . . show lessTags
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Member Reviews
As a series book I knew what one of the births and one of the marriages would be in this book, and I wondered if there would be much more to it than that. Being a detective series you can pretty much guarantee a death or two. I'm pleased to say it turned out to be more than just a couple of rites of passage for the central characters.
Decent puzzles added up to a good plot. I'd guessed the murderer quite early on - process of elimination seemed to exclude everyone else - but it didn't make for disappointment (as it shouldn't in a good book) because there was enough else to figure out and the 'how' wasn't at all clear to me.
This has been a consistently good series; I think I'm within a book of catching up with the author now.
Sadly, the last in the Lloyd and Hill series, because the author died. The books kept getting better and better and I will always wonder what would have happened next.
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20+ Works 2,178 Members
Author Jill McGown was born in Cambeltown, Scotland on August 9, 1947. Her first novel, A Perfect Match, was published in 1983. Since then she has written over fifteen novels. Jill McGown died April 6, 2007. (Bowker Author Biography)
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- Members
- 139
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- 234,227
- Reviews
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- Languages
- English, Swedish
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 15
- ASINs
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