Black Summer by M.W. Craven

Black Summer by M.W. Craven
Publisher: Constable
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 3 stars
Reviewed by Fern

Jared Keaton, chef to the stars. Charming. Charismatic. Psychopath . . . He’s currently serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of his daughter, Elizabeth. Her body was never found and Keaton was convicted largely on the testimony of Detective Sergeant Washington Poe.

So when a young woman staggers into a remote police station with irrefutable evidence that she is Elizabeth Keaton, Poe finds himself on the wrong end of an investigation, one that could cost him much more than his career.

Helped by the only person he trusts, the brilliant but socially awkward Tilly Bradshaw, Poe races to answer the only question that matters: how can someone be both dead and alive at the same time?

And then Elizabeth goes missing again – and all paths of investigation lead back to Poe.

A number of years ago, DS Washington Poe was instrumental in getting Jared Keaton – renown celebrity chef – put away for life for murdering his daughter, Elizabeth. So when a young woman staggers into a remote police station and all the blood work confirms that she’s the six years missing Elizabeth, no one is under more scrutiny than Poe. Racing against time before he’s railroaded with internal investigations, Poe and Tilly have to find answers for some critical questions.

This is the second book in the Washington Poe series, and I found it just as well plotted and well-paced as the first. Tilly is still hands down my favourite character – I don’t know how the author manages to get her to be so relatable and enjoyable while being so very different, but I find Tilly refreshing, delightful and just a joy to read. Obviously, I quite enjoy Poe as well, but I have to admit the first few chapters were very Poe-centric and while I found them good reading and I was happily sucked into the story, I noticed a real shift and heightening of my enthusiasm of the book when Tilly came more onto the stage.

I really felt this book had some solid twists and turns in the plot. While I could foresee a few of them, quite a few of the twists took me by surprise and this absolutely delighted me. I’ve read a huge number of mysteries and so I often don’t expect to be really taken by surprise by a plot twist. There were a few I didn’t catch in this book and that was lovely and refreshing to me.

While I did find this book slightly grittier than the more usual British police procedural style of mystery, I definitely didn’t find the pace to be action riddled. I thought this was certainly more of a step-by-step investigation – and those are the style of books I usually prefer – but the subject and the general air of Poe and his working methods were a little on the edgier and grittier side than many British books that I read, so I do feel that’s something readers should be conscious of before setting out in this series.

I thought this book stood very well by itself – as the second in the series there isn’t an enormous history or past to these characters and the mystery plot absolutely is well encased in this book alone and doesn’t have any lurking connections to other books. Readers should feel quite comfortable picking this up by itself and enjoying it in full. A solid mystery and I’m eager for the next in the series.