Book Review - Bleed Like Me by Cath Staincliffe

I wrote about the first Scott & Bailey book in November and also previewed this book in my March post “Look out for these!”.  This book follows on from the events of TV series 1, although you don’t need to have seen it to make sense of what’s happened already.

The criminal plot starts with the discovery of a mother, her brother and daughter murdered in their beds.  The husband and two sons are missing, with the police fearful that the missing husband will soon murder his sons too.  There are few clues and the police team struggle to track down the missing man and stop him harming his children.  There is also a more personal plot as the three detectives Gill Murray, Janet Scott and Rachel Bailey work the case whilst trying to deal with personal battles with home and family.

There were so many things I liked about this book.  It’s good on the procedural element without too much detail which could make it dull.  Staincliffe paints emotions really well, particulalrly the grieving relatives.  I found myself really drawn into the investigation team’s interactions as they develop their ideas about the case and how they try to understand the murderers motivation, what really “makes him tick”, so they can get one step ahead of him.

It’s a well paced book that moves briskly through the five days of the investigation interspersed with flashes of wry humour that made me giggle and at one point laugh out loud.  

The best part though is the charactarisation and the way the three detectives interact.  I like Murray’s energy and decisiveness, which is good for work, but doesn’t seem to solve her problems at home.  Scott has a calm professionalism but is unable to control her feelings for Andy who excites her passions.  However, the best character for me is still Rachel Bailey; hard and angry, but underneath it all frightened - not because she’s just escaped being murdered, but the fear that she could lose everything she’s worked for and descend again into what she sees as a scummy life she’s worked so hard to escape from.  And although Bailey’s a really talented detective, she still has blind spots about people, particularly about her boss Murray, who she is close to hating, not realising that Murray continues to give her opportunities, where other senior officers wouldn’t.

It’s not a long book and I think you could read it in one sitting if you started early enough, but two evenings would be plenty.  It’s a worthy successor to the first Scott & Bailey book – if you liked that, you’ll certainly like this one.

Romancrimeblogger