Old, new cases clash in Hannah’s whodunit

The brutal murder of Frankie Oliver’s teenaged sister Joanna almost three decades ago has haunted her family ever since — and remains unsolved.

Horrific enough, but dad Frank was the senior police officer on the scene, unaware he was about to find his own daughter’s bloody corpse.

And now Frankie (the younger) is detective inspector Oliver, and yet, still, her sister’s killer is likely alive and out there, somewhere.

Suddenly, a chance remark from a drunken man, caught by detective chief inspector (DCI) David Stone — improbably, tenuously, just maybe it’s a clue that police have been waiting to stumble upon for the last three decades.

But if it’s not, then opening up any hope for Frankie’s family would absolutely destroy them if it’s not true. David launches his investigation, though only his boss and rookie detective Indira know what he’s sleuthing.

Off we go in another brilliant police procedural from English author Mari Hannah.

But wait — there’s more.

Upon her promotion, Frankie returns to uniform to head a cop shop in a remote part of Northumbria (redundancy alert), whereupon there’s a gruesome road pile-up, two men among the dead, a third scarpering, and in the back of their van a wee lad, shackled up.

Frankie reckons she’s stumbled upon a child trafficking ring — that the dead men carry no ID is what mystery fans call a clue — and as luck would have it, the crash falls to inspector Andrea, whose wife Rae is Frankie’s sister. And the entire family is smitten with the terrified lad.

Complicated enough?

There’s still more.

Something was said just before David overheard the fateful words, something that suggests David and Frankie may finally have recognized that what they feel for each other may be more than platonic collegial friendship — alas.

David avoids Frankie lest he let slip what he’s investigating, and Frankie takes it the wrong way, as most any of us would.

They’re not the only two people in police fiction resolutely determined never to suffer personal joy; the detectives of Peter Robinson and Stephen Booth come to mind.

All of this adds up to one outstanding murder mystery.

Hannah has written four previous Oliver and Stone novels, as well as nine DCI Kate Daniels mysteries set in the same universe in Newcastle, Tyneside and Northumbria.

David and Indira slowly, oh so slowly, slog their way through ancient records and unearth possible witnesses — again, ever so slowly. When they suspect, well, let’s just say that Mari Hannah won’t let them utter a name aloud, which drives us all proper bonkers. Well played, Mari.

Frankie, meanwhile, has widened her own case to draw in shadowy forces charged with defence of the realm — that’s all you get, need to know only, Official Secrets Act and all that.

There are subplots galore, mostly fascinating family dynamics.

Mari Hannah keeps turning out these champion murder mysteries. Stoke the fire, sit back in the comfy chair; wine is inappropriate, but a Newcastle brown ale would be just grand — enjoy.

Retired Free Press reporter Nick Martin and his wife return to his native Tyneside this fall, and thank Mari Hannah for highlighting the Cumberland Arms in Newcastle and Riley’s Fish Shack in Tynemouth.