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THE LAST VICTIM IN GLEN ROSS
by M. G. Kincaid
Pocket Books, December 2003
294 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 0743467566


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Detective Sergeant Seth Mornay is not the nicest policeman you'll ever read about. He has a past, which we only hear a very little bit about, connected to his previous career as a Royal Marine. He likes to seduce women, and doesn't consider suspects in cases on which he is actively working to be off limits, which annoys the bejesus out of his partner, Constable Claire Gillespie. He has a serious attitude problem with his superior, Detective Inspector Walter Byrne, who is specifically jealous of Mornay's rapid rise within the department and is generally a vindictive person.

Mornay's best friend since childhood is Victoria. He is having some problems with her because he wound up in bed with Victoria's sister, who happens to be a drug addict. Pamela is now pregnant, because Mornay used the condoms she brought, which she had doctored. She is using this pregnancy as a way to avoid going into drug rehabilitation, which is upsetting Victoria even more than the fact that her good friend slept with her sister. Mornay is not always the most choosy of men when it comes to sex partners.

Mornay is sent to the small town of Glen Ross to investigate the brutal murder -- her face was stabbed multiple times -- of Ina Matthews. Ina was supposed to be helping set up the annual Sandrington Flower Show, a show at which she hoped to win a prize for her roses.

As one might expect, Ina was not universally liked, although she wasn't the person in the village hated by one and all, either. The scion of the local aristocracy, Gregor Sandrington, had proposed to Ina several times, with no success. His mother, Lydia, is not pleased to find this out. Evan Whelan, the local minister, was good friends with her. Evan's wife Julia had killed herself several years prior, and Byrne had been the investigating officer on that case. Mornay sees possible connections, and thinks it more than likely that Byrne didn't investigate as thoroughly as he should have.

Kincaid conveys with great effectiveness the dreariness and dankness of the countryside. She brings to very vivid life the petty annoyances that come when one's job is at the mercy of a superior who is, at best, not on your side. The realities of the drudgery and redundancy of a police investigation are set forth in all their boring and annoying truth. And yet this book made me want to read more. I want to know what happens to Mornay, what becomes of this dour yet obviously sexy man.

Her next book, LAST SEEN IN ABERDEEN, will be coming out this fall, if I remember correctly. I will look for it. If you like police procedurals, mysteries set in Scotland, complex characters and interesting plots, you should look for it, too.

Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, May 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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