DEADLY FORCE

DCI Bill Slider and his mates in the Shepherd’s Bush constabulary must face the consequences of the murder of one of their own.

In some sense, PC Peter Bentley wasn’t quite one of their own, since he worked out of Notting Hill. But when he’s found beaten to death in the water near Wormwood Scrubs, Slider is swiftly appointed senior investigating officer, though the active support of his colleagues in Notting Hill boosts the budget for the case in ways that will turn out to be unexpectedly helpful. As usual, the first steps are slow and halting, ignoring the toes Bentley’s recent work might have bruised in order to focus instead on Bentley’s estranged wife, human resources executive Sandy Bentley, her live-in lover, Ben Sompting, and the disappearance of a single diamond earring conspicuously absent from Bentley’s ear. The case heats up with the involvement of the leaders of the narcotics task force; the news that Bentley had made some attractive consumer goods available to his coworkers at bargain prices; the disappearance and the similar killing of veteran thief Norrie Cole (had Bentley been fencing the stuff Norrie pinched?); and the news that Megan Bentley—the younger sister the victim loved and mentored until her adolescence fractured in a shower of drink and drugs—may not actually have died 10 years ago. As Jim Atherton—Slider’s sergeant, bagman, and friend—keeps up a constant stream of good-natured barbs, the Shepherd’s Bush crew oh-so-gradually closes in on a criminal mastermind known as “the Big Man, or Mr Big.”

Procedural fans will rejoice at this latest installment, which has much to offer newcomers as well.