Dangerous Pursuits

August 1, 2018
Seventeen years earlier, during a bungled robbery, wealthy businessman Jerome Harbinger's wife and driver were killed. Deranged by grief, Harbinger threatened to kill not only the supposed killer, Edward Cho, but also Cho's entire family. Cho's two teenage children were forced to assume new identifies and flee the city. Even after 17 years, Harbinger is apparently still seeking revenge and will stop at nothing to find the two now-grown Cho siblings. Meanwhile, an apparent kidnap attempt on bookshop owner Gabriel Ash's nanny leads Ash's good friend, Police Constable Hazel Best, into making connections between that case and the still unresolved matter of Cho's children. Before long, Hazel finds herself involved in a tragedy of near-Shakespearean proportions. Aided by Hazel's boss, DI Dave Gorman, Gabriel and Hazel race against the clock to try to keep Harbinger from carrying out his final act of revenge. Bannister's cleverly plotted, gripping story offers an effective combination of straightforward procedural and suspense thriller. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2020
Gabriel Ash has had a difficult life. Always a bit of a loner, he married, only to have his wife try to murder him and abduct his two boys, after which he suffered a nervous breakdown. After therapy, he's in a better place and has settled down in Norbold, England; opened a bookshop; and made friends, including policewoman Hazel Best. He's even become involved in helping the police solve crimes. His latest case begins one evening when he's walking his dog and encounters a young woman running from the nearby woods, her face and arms scratched and her clothes torn, breathlessly claiming she's escaped a rapist. Gabriel takes her home and calls the cops. When the police search the woods for the rapist, they find a body but no clues, no leads, and no suspects. That changes after Gabriel and Hazel put their heads together. Bannister's latest in this popular series is one of her best. Strong characters, well-set-up twists, gentle humor, and a shock ending make for a fine read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

May 25, 2020
Bookshop owner Gabriel Ash, a former spy whose mental breakdown has left him with socialization issues and a tendency to hold long conversations with his dog, Patience, gets into trouble in Bannister’s enjoyable seventh mystery set in Norbold, England (after 2019’s Silent Footsteps). That these dialogues are often held in public has led most of the citizens of Norbold to regard Ash as the town nutcase. While Gabriel is out walking with Patience, 17-year-old Rachel Somers races up to him and begs for his help, saying that an unidentified man has tried to rape her. Gabriel notifies the police, who then discover the murdered body of Rachel’s mother’s boyfriend. Two days later, two 14-year-old girls report being chased by a man vaguely resembling Gabriel. That’s all some locals need to target him as a dangerous pedophile. Gabriel and Constable Hazel Best, his close friend, race to discover the murderer’s identity before more violence erupts. The gradual change in the rapport between Gabriel and Hazel will please series fans. Newcomers will be likewise enchanted by this distinctive pair. Agent: Jane Gregory, David Higham Assoc. (U.K.).

May 1, 2020
The assault of a Norbold teenager turns her tiny household upside down and introduces deadly complications for PC Hazel Best. Grabbed by a man who plants himself between her and her home, Rachel Somers, 17, takes off into the nearby forest, followed by architect Gethin Phillips, the longtime domestic partner of her mother, hotel owner Pru Somers. Soon after Rachel runs from the woods into the arms of used bookseller Gabriel Ash, a friend of Hazel's, traumatized but not seriously hurt, DC Emma Friend finds Phillips bashed to death by a tree limb the Meadowvale police know they're never going to find. A second attack reported a few days later by 15-year-old Sky Pascoe makes DCI Dave Gorman fear his department is looking at a serial rapist. But questions and contradictions raised by the stories told by Rachel, a gifted pianist, and her relentless stage-door mother make both Gorman and Hazel, returned from a leave in Cambridgeshire after her last case, wonder if the situation's both simpler and more complicated than that. Could the attack on Rachel have been only a smoke screen for the criminal's real target, the murder of Phillips? Or is it possible that Phillips ran after Rachel for some other reason than to rescue her? Hazel, not one to bear wrongs patiently, will seriously endanger her quest for assignment to Meadowvale CID before justice is done. Fine, no-frills detective work that repeatedly throws disturbing new lights on every member of its limited cast.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.