NIGHTHAWKING

DS Adam Tyler investigates a baffling murder.

In this densely plotted novel, Tyler, nominally a cold case investigator, is recruited to help look into the death of a woman whose body is discovered in the Sheffield Botanical Garden. The reader sees a "nighthawker," illegally prospecting for treasure with a metal detector, unearth her hand and then flee, and in the morning, garden employees find it aboveground. The nighthawkers are the loosely connected members of a detectorist club prepared to break the law in the pursuit of treasure, after hours and on private property, and when the novel opens they have already explored an archaeological site and uncovered a cache of rare gold Roman coins. When the rest of the body is disinterred by the authorities, two of these coins are found on the woman's eyes; the mystery of her death and why the coins are there forms the backbone of the plot. But of course there are complications. The dead woman is Chinese, a student at Sheffield University, and she may or may not have been involved in the illegal export of plants; one of the nighthawkers was a close friend of hers; Tyler is warned off the case, first by an anonymous note and then by a beating; Sheffield's top hoodlum makes an apparently unconnected appearance, complicating Tyler's life; and Tyler's protégé, Mina Rabbani, suffers some angst-y moments. Readers familiar with Tyler and Rabbani will be glad to see them back, and though Tyler's openly gay identity is not a strong element of this episode, he still must negotiate moments of homophobia. The assorted nighthawkers, secondary suspects, and colleagues both true and dubious are all well drawn and mostly believable, though their many connections may seem a bit contrived.

A satisfying, intricate thriller.