Deadlock

August 1, 2018
The always-reliable Ison produces another winner in his engaging Brock and Poole series. After a woman's body is found in Richmond Park outside London, the two cops are called to the scene, where they learn the victim has been strangled and?bizarrely?has had her bra removed. Hoping that the strange modus operandi will help them find the killer quickly, Brock and Poole are dismayed but not entirely shocked when a second victim is found a few days later. After a well-detailed investigation, Brook and Poole find that one sad event in a man's life pushed him over the edge. A realistic look at the challenges of modern-day policing, bolstered by sardonic British humor and a twisty plot.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

July 9, 2018
Ison’s enjoyable 16th police procedural set in London (after 2016’s Suddenly at Home) sends curmudgeonly Det. Chief Insp. Harry Brock, of the Homicide and Major Crime Command, and his cheeky colleague, Sgt. Dave Poole, to a crime scene in Richmond Park, where a woman—identified as 25-year-old Rachel Steele from the driver’s license in her cash-filled wallet—has been strangled. The killer took only the victim’s bra. This presents the “disturbing possibility” that the police “could be looking for a trophy-hunting homicidal maniac.” Similar murders follow. Early on, Brock proudly confesses: “I only dealt in paper; computers, clever telephones and other related toys were another world as far as I was concerned, one I did not wish to explore.” Fortunately, he’s supported by a squad of bright, often amusing, young coppers who check alibis, set up stake-outs, and handle 21st-century appliances. No one, though, thinks to check the city’s ubiquitous CCTV cameras. Ison is sure to please older readers with a taste for the quaint.