Death's Door

Starred review from March 19, 2012
Kelly’s masterful fourth procedural starring Det. Insp. Peter Shaw of the West Norfolk Constabulary (after 2011’s Death Toll) centers on a highly unusual cold case. In 1994, Shane White, a 20-year-old lifeguard, accompanied more than 70 people on a ferry to the island of East Hills, only to be fatally stabbed by one of them. At the time, Shaw and his team were unable to ID the killer. Advances in DNA analysis offer new hope, as the murderer may have left his or her skin cells on a towel marked with White’s blood. The surviving 66 suspects are to be re-interviewed and asked to supply a DNA sample. The cold case may have links with a warm one involving an apparent suicide. The intelligently developed lead must adjust to the loss of vision in one eye while navigating the treacherous shoals of office politics. Deft plotting and shrewdly drawn characters help make this the best installment to date. Agent: Faith Evans, Faith Evans Associates.

June 1, 2012
For CID coppers Shaw and Valentine (Death Toll, 2011, etc.), an unsolved murder poisons the air 20 years later. Even after a cyanide pill has done its work, DI Peter Shaw, studying the still, pale face, can readily see how remarkably beautiful Marianne Osbourne had been. Now "bloodless as china," her face is an exact match for the white duvet that covers her. There's no note, but George Valentine, Peter's sergeant with 30 years on the job, tells the world that he knows a suicide when he sees one: Pills are pills, evidence is evidence. Peter takes his point, but certain emanations, vague yet stubborn, in the death room keep him from being persuaded. And of course he's right not to be. Soon enough, the evidence begins tilting in a different, entirely unexpected direction. Twenty years earlier, an excursion ferryboat that had deposited 75 passengers on an uninhabited pleasure island off the coast of Norfolk returned with only 74. Young lifeguard Shane White had been left behind, murdered, his unsolved death destined to become a famous cold case. How are the two fatalities connected? To begin with, Marianne had been one of the ferryboat's passengers. Other connections soon develop. Among the most intriguing and bedeviling of these to Shaw and Valentine is the sudden influx of death by cyanide pill. Not all the details of the complex investigation are equally compelling, but the quality of Kelly's prose and the ongoing upstairs-downstairs relationship between the two protagonists will propel readers past the dry spots.

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April 15, 2012
Kelly's latest is a meaty murder mystery featuring Brit coppers Peter Shaw and George Valentine. The pair is called to the scene of what at first looks like a suicide. But something isn't quite right, and even though Shaw can't put his finger on what's bothering him, he has other priorities. Using state-of-the-art forensic techniques, he's hoping to solve a brutal murder from 1994, when a boatload of holiday-makers set off for an island off the coast of England. A few hours later, one of them had been knifed to death, but despite a thorough investigation, the police never found the killer. Shaw hopes he can do better, but when he discovers that the apparent suicide victim was among those who went to the island in 1994, he wonders if there is a link between the two crimes. Pressure from his boss and the media ramps up the situation, and when three more bodies are found, Peter knows he has to act fast to prevent more deaths. A gripping plot plus unexpected twists and plenty of suspense add up to a compelling read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)