Straw In The Wind by Carol Cole
Publisher: The Book Folks
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by FernA suspicious death, a missing girl, and very few leads… New Forest police are grasping at straws
Whilst Detective Inspector Callum MacLean is settling into his new role in rural Hampshire, a young woman is found dead in the neighbourhood, her identity unknown.
For a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone else, this seems very odd, but when a local child goes missing shortly afterwards, panic sets in.
It’s not the first such case for the Scottish inspector, yet the last one in Glasgow ended in tragedy. This is personal. And when Callum’s team don’t share his sense of urgency, he will have to put his foot down.
It doesn’t help that Sergeant Daisy Donaldson, with whom Callum had developed a rapport, has doubts about his theories. Like the weather, relations are becoming stormy.
As the search gets underway to find the little girl, last seen feeding her ponies, all potential suspects have rock solid alibis. The only lead is a white van seen near the area in both cases.
Yet Callum begins to fear they might not be the only ones looking for the missing girl. Will they find her before tragedy strikes again?
DI Callum MacLean is settling well into his new life in rural Hampshire. With a small but friendly team of police colleagues and a comfortable place to live while his new house is being built, he feels quietly settled despite still deeply missing his recently deceased wife. When a young woman is found dead in New Forest, his peace is brought to an abrupt end. When this is followed shortly by a young missing girl things quickly begin to spiral out of control. Can MacLean and his team get to the bottom of these mysteries?
While this is the second book by this author about DI MacLean I strongly feel this can be read by itself as a stand alone, British police procedural mystery. The story and most of the characters are well encapsulated in this book and while a little of MacLean’s history – mostly his grief and loss still being processed after his wife died naturally previous to the first book – does need to be explained, the vast majority of this book hold very well just inside these pages.
I feel the two mysteries themselves were very well plotted and paced. Indeed, I feel this is written well enough I even questioned whether the kidnapped child and murdered young woman were linked or not. Coincidences do occur and there was enough doubt for me that I did wonder and had to learn more along with the characters. It wasn’t an easily guessable resolution to the plot and that was quite wonderful to me.
With two solid plots, some really layered and interesting characters and some realistic and relatable secondary characters I found this to be vastly enjoyable and an easy book to pick up and read. I am definitely eager for more by this author and can happily recommend it to mystery readers of all ages. Recommended.
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