I’m delighted to be sharing Laura’s thoughts about Because She Looked Away by Alison Bruce.
- Category : Crime & Mystery
- Publisher : Constable (26 Sept. 2024)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1472123905
- ISBN-13 : 978-1472123909
After the sudden death of her sister, devastated detective DS Ronnie Blake relocates to Cambridge to help her brother Alex raise their sister’s young son, Noah. She reports for her first day but instead finds herself being questioned by a special investigations unit, nicknamed the DEAD Team.
With a small group of six, led by DI Fenton, the once-successful DEAD team has a single outstanding case, Operation Byron, and the failure to resolve it threatens the unit’s existence. Their most promising lead is an anonymous note linking three seemingly unconnected people: a convicted fraudster, a dead academic… and Ronnie’s sister Jodie.
When Ronnie is denied information about Operation Byron, she follows a lead slipped to her by Malachi, the youngest member of the team, and makes a discovery which links Operation Byron to a disturbing unsolved murder. She is rapidly drawn into an intricate web of deceit, buried secrets and tragedy and the discovery that her connection to Cambridge is far darker than she could ever have guessed.
Because She Looked Away Review
Because She Looked Away is the first in the Ronnie Blake series.
I enjoyed this police procedural with a series of twists and turns.
Leaving the Met to relocate in Cambridge due to family, Ronnie Blake a detective finds herself working on a case involving her late sister. I enjoyed her character, she is kind towards her family, a brother called Alex and her young nephew Noah but she is also a cracking detective.
As the detective works on a missing person case there are signs of different crimes linking together.
I look forward to reading another in the series as the characters are already well developed and easy to read. At times I found the plot tricky to navigate but I enjoyed the twists.
An interesting read.
About the Author
Alison Bruce is the author of 10 crime novels and two non-fiction titles. Her first novel, Cambridge Blue, was described by Publishers Weekly as an ‘assured debut’ and introduced both detective, DC Gary Goodhew, and her trademark Cambridge setting. She went on to write six further novels in the DC Goodhew series before writing two psychological thrillers I Did It for Us and The Moment Before Impact. Because She Looked Away is the first in a new series, again set in Cambridge but this time featuring DCI Ronnie Blake and the DEAD team. Alison herself lives just outside Cambridge and has been shortlisted twice for the CWA Dagger in the Library award.