British Mystery

Finished August 18
The Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill
Hill's police officer, DCS Simon Serrailler has long been a favourite of mine. His is a solitary man, finding it difficult to make a meaningful connection with a woman, and dividing his time between his career and his art. In this novel, he has just come off a difficult case for SIFT, Special Incident Flying Taskforce, and is on a sabbatical on a remote Scottish island. While there he thinks about what he wants next in his life.
Back home in Lafferton, his sister Cat is still coming to terms with the loss of her husband Chris. She's struggling to look after her family and figure out where she wants her medical career to go next. She worries about how her older son is handling the loss of his father.
Also a new Dean for the cathedral is making drastic changes, and planning more and this has the congregation, including Cat, divided about the future direction of the cathedral and its functions and services.
Also in the community someone starts targeting local prostitutes and the police are struggling to find leads. Simon is recalled from his leave to head up the case. When other women begin to go missing, criticism of the police begins, and the community fear grows.
It is really the characters that are so strong in these novels and even the minor characters are brought to life, so that you can see what drives them and what their lives are about. They are a wide range of characters and all very interesting.
As usual, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.