12 Days of a Kensington Christmas ~ Murder in Thrall

Title ~ Murder in Thrall

Series ~ Scotland Yard, #1

Author ~ Anne Cleeland

Publisher ~ Kensington

Published ~ 30 July 2013

Genre ~ Mystery

*Book source ~ Many thanks to Kensington for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

My Rating ~ 5 bites out of 5

Kathleen Doyle a 24-year-old 1^st year Detective Constable with Scotland Yard is beyond surprised when the great and brilliant Chief Inspector Acton requests her presence for a murder investigation. Doyle’s not a bad detective, but her greatest strength is in interrogation. Call it intuition, a bit of psychic ability or whatever you want she can sense what others are feeling, so she’s practically a human lie detector. She and Acton never openly discuss what it is she can do, but he has no qualms in using whatever is at his disposal to close cases. And in the 3 months of working together they’ve closed an impressive number of cases. But does he have an ulterior motive for calling her from the lowest tier to the exalted ranks? And will they solve this next string of murders when it begins to look like one or the other of them is the next target?

I liked the premise of this story and thought it would be a regular mystery with a murder or murders to solve before the end. What I got was so much more. Told from Doyle’s POV the inner workings of her mind are delightful. Her Irish way of speaking, her view of the world and how she thinks of Acton are all so fascinating that the book fairly flies along. On top of that, there’s Acton and his actions. Very unusual and mystifying. And finally there is a murderer running around killing people in a seemingly unconnected yet connected fashion and Doyle and Acton are hard pressed to link the murders together. The ending was a surprise. I didn’t see that coming. I loved this story and I’m looking forward to reading more stories featuring Doyle and Acton.