Blurb
Run.
Moonlight slants through the trees on the ancestral Dunlow estate, where a young woman runs for her life. Gunshots break the silence.
The next morning, the body of seventeen-year-old student Melanie Pirt is found.
DS Gabe Martin is more than ready to take the lead on her first murder case. Determined to prove herself to the cold and mysterious DI Juliet Stern, Gabe can’t afford any distractions – especially not ones that wake her in the night, reminding her of a past she’d rather forget.
Because while Gabe and Juliet have few leads, there are plenty of suspects. And every one of them is lying…
The first in a new detective series featuring an unforgettable female detective partnership, Shot in the Dark is perfect for fans of Cara Hunter and Gytha Lodge.
My review
Chased by a white dog through the woods, the young teenage girl escapes by climbing a tree, allowing herself to breathe and believing herself safe, she hears shots from a gun, the tree tilts and she falls hard, the tree’s branches scratching and battering her body. Melanie hits the ground hard and closes her eyes as she feels the dog’s moist breath on her face.
Two murders are called in close together. Gabe and Juliet attend the shot and badly mauled black teen and other officers attend the body of a small child dumped by communal bins.
Why is the owner of the estate, where Melanie’s body is found, trying to disassociate himself from her death? What’s the link between the two bodies? What was seventeen-year-old Melanie Pirt doing on a private estate in the middle of the night and did she put herself there? Are there similarities between the two deaths? Just two chapters in and questions abound!
Told through a mixture of chapters, texts and emails, this story explores the case of murdered teen Melanie Pirt and the frustrations of working alongside other cases which take resources and slow down the investigation process. Anna Britton has written a story which focusses on the problems and conflicts officers must face as they put their own feelings to one side and concentrate on the information in front of them. This therefore is a slightly different type of crime novel from those I’ve read previously, the officers feel very normal and each has their own issues outside of work which conflict or support in equal measure.
The case is frustrated throughout by the sense of entitlement of the estate’s owners where Melanie’s body is found and through this we learn about the character’s themselves and their different reasons for keeping parts of their lives secret from each other.
This is a phenomenal story and has been carefully plotted to be believable and Anna has tied up all of the loose ends in a way that is satisfactory and leaves the reader wanting to read more of her work. Not least to follow the fortunes of the two officers at the centre of this series.
About the author
Welcome! I can pretty much always be found with my head in a book – my own or other’s 🙂 If I’m not reading, I’m probably writing, and if I’m not writing, I’m probably baking.
My debut crime thriller – Shot in the Dark – published on 26th October 2023 by Canelo. I’m so excited for you to meet Detectives Gabe and Juliet and help them solve crimes! I’m represented by the lovely Saskia Leach at Kate Nash Literary Agency.
Write on the Cusp 