Detective Ian Petersen is a newly married man. His marriage
also seems to already be going down the tubes. His wife,
Bev, has no understanding of the sort of work that he does
and is resentful of any extra time that he must spend away
from her while solving important criminal cases. His latest
case involves the murder of a woman who has been stabbed to
death late at night close to a park and it couldn't have
come at a worse time for Ian and his marriage.
There's no explanation for the woman's death. When her next
of kin is tracked down, it seems as if her husband may just
be the prime suspect. After all, there are plenty of
witnesses to the husband's constant yelling and berating of
his wife. Their teenage son has been trying for years to get
his mother to leave his father. Now, it appears that she
waited too long.
While Ian is investigating the murder, more bodies start to
pile up in connection with the case. Not only does this make
it more difficult to get to the bottom of things, but the
extra time that he has to put into working on it is only
making matters at home much worse. Bev doesn't appreciate
being put on the back burner for his job and things are
looking bleak on the home front.
While the husband of the first murder victim still seems
like a viable suspect to Ian, the subsequent murders make
very little sense to him as to why the husband would commit
them. It is a puzzle that takes him down a rather confusing
and bleak road.
The murderer will be caught but there's a secret that Ian
doesn't know. This secret means that there will be even more
murders in the future.
COLD SACRIFICE is an excellent whodunit that grabs the
reader's attention and holds it in place until the final
page when the shocking and unsettling ending is revealed. I
loved the way investigative procedures were used as well as
getting to go inside the lives of the various people
involved. These lives are not always pleasant but they are
very realistically portrayed so that I felt as if I were
right there in the middle of the pouring rain, the smoky
interior of a strip club, the police department and any
other setting Leigh Russell decided to take her readers. I
highly anticipate her next book!
When three dead bodies are discovered in Detective Ian
Peterson's hometown of Kent, it becomes clear that a vicious
killer is on the loose. And without his trusted colleague,
Detective Geraldine Steel, by his side, Ian's left to take
the lead on a complex murder case with few clues.
The first victim is a middle-aged woman named Martha,
brutally stabbed to death in the local park. Her husband,
who did not report her missing, is the prime suspect until a
young prostitute, Della, reveals his whereabouts the night
Martha was murdered. But then she is strangled to death in
her apartment. While the police are frantically gathering
evidence and looking for a connection, a second prostitute
is suffocated.
With nothing but the timing of the murders to tie the three
women to one another, Ian and his new partner, Polly
Mortimer, struggle to make sense of the case and find the
elusive killer before he strikes again. But by the time Ian
realizes the truth, it may be too late to save Polly.
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