BLOOD BROTHER

Penelope Browne was an independent TV producer with a nose for corruption in unexpected places, but when Detective Inspector Jacko Jackson begins to look into her shooting, it seems that the most interesting thing about her is that she was the sister of Russell Browne, Member of Parliament for Trent Valley and newly appointed Minister for Police. All Jackson's leads—to Penny's 11th-hour visitor Rich Richardson; to the generational bitterness between the bottling-company Brownes and unionist Richardson and his shop-steward father Dickie; to Dickie's former lieutenant Alan Bond, now a turncoat middle manager at Browne and Green— seem to lead away from the dead woman, even though Jackson, shaken and maybe prejudiced by his unwonted fancy for Constable Tricia Floyd-Moore, suspects that the key to the murder is Penny's recent abortion. Why would a woman so passionately determined to have children, with or without benefit of clergy, have ended the life she was carrying? Palmer's fourth procedural isn't quite up to the level of Bent Grasses (1995)—the final twist is one too many—but it's still a worthwhile entry in this fine, underrated series.