Bleeding Heart Yard by Elly Griffiths

26^th March 2023.

Once again, Elly Griffiths has produced an outstanding and captivating novel, featuring Harbinder Kaur. She’s moved from Sussex to London, following her promotion to detective inspector. She’s soon thrown into a murder investigation when MP Garfield Rice is killed at a school reunion, attended by Cassie, one of the detectives in her team.

It’s the start of a complex investigation, delving into the lives of several people, who were part of an elite group during their schooldays. They were also involved in the death of another pupil, pushed in front of an oncoming train.

Is this death significant? Is it linked to the murder of Garfield Rice?

As the story progresses, told by Harbinder and several of the people in the group, it looks like the pupil’s death 21 years ago could be the key to the current murders. Revisiting this horrific episode puts the group and friendships under strain, especially when a second member of the group is murdered.

From the first pages to the last, this is a beautifully written and delivered story with sharply drawn but flawed characters, who have different views on events past and present. Learning more about the different characters and their relationships becomes fascinating as the investigation progresses.

Harbinder stands in the middle of these differing perspectives, trying to work out what really happened and who to trust. Having one of her colleagues involved only makes the investigation more difficult.

The story twists and turns, becoming more complex as Harbinder gets closer to the truth. But just as you think you’ve worked it out, in comes a masterful twist to wrong foot you. It only added to my pleasure and enjoyment of another glorious novel in the series.

While you can read Bleeding Heart Yard as a standalone, don’t miss out on the pleasure of the first two novels, which are equally captivating and well written.

Description

A propulsive new thriller set in London featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur. A murderer hides in plain sight – in the police.

DS Cassie Fitzherbert has a secret – but it’s one she’s deleted from her memory. In the 1990s when she was at school, she and her friends killed a fellow pupil. Thirty years later, Cassie is happily married and loves her job as a police officer.

One day her husband persuades her to go to a school reunion and another ex-pupil, Garfield Rice, is found dead, supposedly from a drug overdose. As Garfield was an eminent MP and the investigation is high profile, it’s headed by Cassie’s new boss, DI Harbinder Kaur. The trouble is, Cassie can’t shake the feeling that one of her old friends has killed again.

Is Cassie right, or was Garfield murdered by one of his political cronies? It’s in Cassie’s interest to skew the investigation so that it looks like the latter and she seems to be succeeding.

Until someone else is killed…