|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Lindsay Gordon has returned to Glasgow with her lover Sophie who has accepted the chair of obstetrics at the university. Lindsay is kicking her heels, unemployed and missing California. Out jogging one day she meets Rory, an ambitious young investigative reporter who was inspired by a lecture Lindsay had given many years ago. They join forces, and Lindsay relishes the chance to work on stories of local corruption and sharpen up her reporting skills. At home though, life is rather tense. Sophie is desperate to have a baby and has arranged for a male friend to donate sperm. Lindsay is not keen to become a parent and is torn by Sophie's ultimatum - to stay and raise a child, or to leave. And Rory is rather attractive too. Meanwhile in Belfast, Patrick Coughlan, a powerful IRA man with a successful gambling business, has received word that a former employee, Bernadette Dooley, who went missing some years before has been seen in Glasgow, and he sends men to find and observe her. Bernadette, now happily married to Tam Gourlay a second hand car dealer and mother to Jack, starts receiving phone calls from Patrick. When Jack is abducted from school, it seems likely that Bernie's first husband is responsible. Rory and Lindsay become involved and before long they track Jack to St Petersburg. Together with Tam, they plan to snatch him back. As a big fan of Val McDermid's earlier Lindsay Gordon, and Kate Brannigan series, and being too squeamish to try the more recent and more successful Tony Hill series, I had been eagerly awaiting HOSTAGE TO MURDER, the sixth Lindsay Gordon novel, for some time but sadly I was disappointed. Whilst it was good to catch up with Lindsay again, the novel was less of a mystery, and more of a thriller in tone than previously, and not a very thrilling one at that. The plot twists were pretty easy to spot from the start. I preferred the smaller stories that Lindsay worked on before, rather than this international adventure. Well-paced with good characters and settings, it was nonetheless unsatisfying for me.
Reviewed by Bridget Bolton, December 2003
This book has more than one review. Click here to show all.
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
