Mystery lovers and dog lovers can team up to solve this murder in Oxfordshire. As noted in many crime stories, dog- walkers often report shallow graves or human remains because these people are out in open areas with canine bone- finders. THE WHITE SHEPHERD called Bonnie is with Anna Hopkins at the start of the Oxford Dog-Walkers Mystery, which promises to be a strong series.
Finding a dead young woman isn't how Anna expected to start her day, and to make matters worse, she knew the dead girl. There's no doubt that she was killed. Two other lady dog- walkers come to Anna's aid, Tansy and Isadora. The police get investigations under way, and warn Anna that this is the third woman to be killed in Oxford recently. Perhaps walking with a large rescue dog is all that kept Anna from becoming the victim.
We learn that Anna had a tragic past which she would prefer to forget. Her only remaining family is her grandfather, comfortable in a care home. She shares her story with him and finds a phone message from Naomi, the dead woman, who was a researcher. Naomi claimed that she had found something intriguing - shortly afterwards, she was dead. Coincidence? Anna doesn't think so.
I really enjoyed the descriptions of the large, well- behaved dog, and how Anna manages her despite not having dog-owning experience. Working as an administrator in Oxford's venerable Walsingham College, Anna shows us the academic life. Actually, she shows around a visiting American, Jake, who has made a career with the US Navy and was once Bonnie's owner. But it's with the other two women that Anna really shares her experiences and her private conviction that Naomi's killer wasn't the serial murderer, as Thames Valley Police understandably believe.
The Oxford setting will be familiar to fans of Inspector Morse, and while this book is modern with e-mails and smartphones, some aspects of the beautiful historic city and colleges are unchanging, and familiar places include Jericho and Woodstock. The celebrated modern poets and receptions seem part of the picture, but each step takes us further along a trail of danger and damaged lives. THE WHITE SHEPHERD by Annie Dalton, who is English and has written children's fiction, is a worthy addition to my British crime fiction bookshelf.
First in the brand-new Anna Hopkins dogwalking mystery
series: an intriguing new departure for
award-winning YA writer Annie Dalton.
Anna Hopkinsโ daily walk through Oxfordโs picturesque
Port Meadow is rudely interrupted one autumn
morning when her white German Shepherd, Bonnie, unearths
a bloodsoaked body in the undergrowth.
For Anna itโs a double shock: sheโd met the victim
previously. Naomi Evans was a professional researcher
who had told Anna she was working on a book about a
famous Welsh poet, and who offered to help
Anna trace Bonnieโs original owner.
From her conversations with Naomi, Anna is convinced that
she was not the random victim of a
psychopathic serial killer, as the police believe. She
was targeted because of what she knew. With the
official investigation heading in the wrong direction
entirely, Anna teams up with fellow dogwalkers
Isadora Salzman and Tansy Lavelle to discover the truth.
EXCERPT
She had just reached the gates of Christchurch College
when Tansy caught her up. She pushed a wilted business
card into Annaโs hand. โItโs from the cafe where I work,โ
she said breathlessly. โIโve written my number on the
back. I just thought, in case you everโโ She registered
Annaโs stony expression and pulled a face. โYou probably
never want to set eyes on us again, right?โ
Anna shoved the card into the front pocket of her leather
messenger bag, gave a curt nod and kept walking. The
autumnal light touched the ancient buildings with gold.
Somewhere bells rang, the clangorous medieval sound
mingling with the hum of traffic.
Throughout the interview she had longed for the moment
when she could go back to her safe solitary existence,
not having to monitor her expressions or explain herself.
But Inspector Chaudhari had shattered her illusion. I was
with the first-response team. Itโs not something you
easily forget. With those brutally casual words he had
shown her that she would never now know any peace of
mind.
As she passed Carfax Tower a trio of teenage girls
hurried past, laughing, talking, flicking back their
glossy hair. She watched them rushing headlong into their
unknown future, girls every bit as self absorbed and
silly as she had been.
Anna began to walk faster, and her White Shepherd
obediently matched her pace. She mustnโt think. It felt
like if she could just keep moving she could put actual
distance between herself and the rising tide of horror.
Without slowing her pace, Anna fumbled one-handed for her
ear-buds, plugging herself into a talk radio podcast. She
needed impersonal voices; voices, and the physical rhythm
of walking.
There had been a dark period in her life when mindless
walking was the only thing that had held her together,
and so she had walked and walked. Sometimes sheโd walked
all night. When exhaustion finally stopped her in her
tracks, sheโd slept โ in doorways, on park benches, at
the bus station in Gloucester Green โ while her
grandparents had gone frantic with worry. Once sheโd gone
missing for two weeks. The police had eventually picked
her up on a street just off the Cowley Road. Her
grandparents had begged her to tell them where sheโd
been, but she only knew that sheโd been walking. Her
grandmother had cried over Annaโs grubby emaciated state.
She ran her a bath, put plasters on her blisters, tried
to persuade her to eat. For her grandparentsโ sake, Anna
had made a superhuman effort to behave like a normal
sixteen year old: breathe out and in, chew and swallow,
even go to school, until the next time the furies in her
head drove her to walk out of the door and keep on
walking. Twice sheโd been caught trying to let herself
into her old family home with her grandmotherโs key with
no memory of how sheโd got there.
That lost, driven teenager suddenly felt dangerously
close. Anna could feel her grief and terror. She
remembered how something from the external world would
occasionally break through the muffled undersea
sensations that had enclosed her โ the smell of mown
grass from a college garden, a cafe door opening to let
out a babble of voices โ before she was sucked back
under. She had walked so as not to feel, not to remember.
But sometimes, like today, memories would rise up, more
disturbingly vivid than when they were really happening.
In her memories, everything was burnished, glowing,
hyper-real. Whole scenes played themselves out before her
eyes. All the times sheโd screamed at her mother for
being so stupid, for being so unfair, while her little
sister looked on, stricken. Worse than Annaโs shameful
memories were the ordinary good times; like the time she
and her brothers had attempted to toast marshmallows on a
beach in Cornwall in a near gale while her dad tried to
catch fish for their supper. The marshmallows had refused
to melt, then turned ominously black and finally burst
into flame. The fish had stubbornly evaded their fatherโs
hook and line. Her dad had ended up buying everyone fish
and chips, which they ate in the fish-smelling car with
the heater turned up high. Yet Anna recalled it as a day
of pure unalloyed happiness.
If she could just bring them all back for one hour, just
one hour . . .
Anna found herself sitting on a stone step. She could
feel the chill of the stone rising up through the denim
of her jeans. She was soaked through with cold
perspiration. Tiny black specks danced before her eyes,
and for a moment she didnโt know which Anna she was
supposed to be. Then she became aware of the solid warmth
of her White Shepherd pressing firmly against her hip,
pulling her back into present time, back into her body.
Anna dimly heard a passer-by say, โThatโs the most
fabulous looking dog I have ever seen.โ
And she remembered Naomi smiling up at her, her arms
wrapped around Bonnieโs neck.
Anna had offered to pay her for her investigations, and
Naomi had laughed. โAre you kidding! Finding out stuff is
like my drug of choice! Iโm so lucky,โ sheโd told Anna as
rain battered the car windows. โI actually get to do what
I love every day!โ
Bonnie continued to press insistently against Anna. It
felt as if she was saying, โAre you OK? If not, I will
make you OK.โ
Properly taking in her surroundings for the first time,
Anna saw that she was sitting on the bottom of the flight
of steps at the base of the Martyrsโ Memorial, just
across from the Randolph Hotel. All she had to do was
cross over to the Banbury Road, keep walking, keep
breathing out and in, and eventually sheโd reach her
front door. She pulled herself shakily to her feet.
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