Everyone at Kings Lake Central police station has been expecting DC Smith to finally retire.

And it seems he’s on his last case.

It’s a murder on the Norfolk saltmarshes.

As the team from Kings Lake uncover his story, they reveal another, much older one with its origins far back in the previous century. In the tide that governs the affairs of men, it seems, love and loss, betrayal and revenge are timeless themes.

Overdrive

The actual whodunnit is secondary to the police procedural machinations. The interpersonal relationships.

I do like the narrator of the DC Smith audio books – Gildart Jackson.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction by American author Jennifer Egan.

… a set of thirteen interrelated stories with a large set of characters all connected to Bennie Salazar, a record company executive, and his assistant, Sasha.  …

Original. Well written. Well researched. BUT I only got halfway through.

Egan is a great writer. But this book centers on mostly self-destructive characters none of whom I liked nor related with.

I’ve had it with narratives with only unlikable characters — for example, Succession on TV.

When published in 2010 nobody liked this book aside from critics. I’m not surprised.

This is a book about aging.

The most impressive thing about the first 60% of this book 😀 for me was her take on how people age. It has a nonlinear chronology with different character’s point of view at different times of life.

This was also depressing.

Trivia ~ Jennifer Egan once dated Steve Jobs.

Missing Pieces (2021) is set in the same fictional world as Grainger’s DC Smith — but Smith doesn’t actually appear in this novel. He’s mentioned. Often.

I enjoyed this book. It’s a slow burn. Not much action. Plenty of detail on how murder investigations are conducted.

As the first anniversary of the formation of the Kings Lake murder squad approaches, there is a problem—they’ve run out of murders.

As a result, they are given the task of reviewing unsolved cold cases. One of these comes back to life in unexpected ways as the team try to discover the identity of the young woman whose body was found in the Norfolk countryside two decades ago.

And even if they can give her a name, how can they possibly find her killer after so many years?

Lightning Strike is a prequel to Kruger’s Cork O’Connor series.

It follows Cork in his adolescence, shortly before he turns thirteen, the year before his father is killed in the line of duty.

There are mysterious deaths at the heart of the story, of course, but it also explores the relationship Cork had with his father, which shaped him significantly in becoming the man who occupies center stage in the series. …

I’m sure I read this when I was a teenager. I read a lot of Heinlein at the time.

It’s a young adult classic.

Have Space Suit—Will Travel … was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1959 and won the Sequoyah Children’s Book Award for 1961. …

High school senior Clifford “Kip” Russell is determined to get to the Moon, but the price of a ticket is far beyond his reach. His father suggests he enter an advertising jingle-writing contest; first prize is an all-expenses-paid trip there. Instead, he wins a used space suit. 

… He is shocked when a flying saucer lands practically on top of him. An 11-year-old girl (Peewee) and an alien being (the “Mother Thing”) flee from it, but all three are quickly captured and taken to the Moon. …

Book 6 of the police procedural series featuring DC Smith, the aging cop who refuses to retire. After his wife died, he wants to keep busy and relevant.

After a few weeks off for minor knee surgery, the old man returns — grumpy.

He is feeling his age, both physically and mentally and that he no longer really fits in, even his sense of humour is subdued …

Goodreads

I read these books for Smith’s humour.

Therefore this was the least satisfying of the series, so far. Smith was too grumpy to be amusing.

A producer at the BBC and mother to a new baby, Tessa is at work in Belfast one day when the news of another raid comes on the air.

The IRA may have gone underground in the two decades since the Good Friday Agreement, but they never really went away, and lately bomb threats, security checkpoints, and helicopters floating ominously over the city have become features of everyday life.

As the news reporter requests the public’s help in locating those responsible for the robbery, security footage reveals Tessa’s sister, Marian, pulling a black ski mask over her face.

The police believe Marian has joined the IRA, but Tessa is convinced she must have been abducted or coerced …

Amazon

I was impressed at how skillfully this book is constructed.

Well done, Flynn Berry.