It was one of Washington Poe’s most complex cases. A murder without a body. Poe was convinced that Jared Keaton, the celebrity chef, had murdered his own daughter. Despite the lack of a body, Elizabeth’s disappearance soon became a murder enquiry, and Keaton became Poe’s prime suspect. The case was successful, and Keaton began a life sentence in prison. But Elizabeth was never found…

… until six years later, when she walked into a library, where the police were holding a drop-in session. Elizabeth Keaton was alive. Jared Keaton was innocent. And Poe was wrong. And it seems things are going to get a lot worse for him very quickly indeed.

Definitely a quick review this time, as I’ve another six holiday reads to review after this. As I was on holiday, I thought I’d go back and re-read a couple of favourites – and what better book to revisit that this second outing for Poe and Tilly. I’ve made it pretty clear how much I love this series – the latest, The Killer’s Mark, is out next Thursday – so it was an obvious choice. Plus it’s the only one I had on my Kindle.

You can check out my first review to see how much I enjoyed this book – it’s a different style of plot from the opener, with it being pretty clear that Keaton has done… something… but there are plenty of surprises along the way, including one towards the end that I had completely forgotten about.

There’s a couple of bits that caught me out a bit – Tilly is described as being only slightly younger than Poe, when I’d mentally put at least ten years between them, and, taking a quick check of the first book, The Puppet Show, Poe is only thirty-eight in that one! I’d had him in my head as being about ten years older than that – he does refer to failing O Level Biology in this one, which would make him at least fifty (and a bit) but we’ll turn a blind eye to that…

So, it’s another recommendation for what is probably my favourite series of thrillers – intelligent, funny, brilliant characters, surprising plots with cracking twists and sometimes a tad terrifying – the prologue of this one, for example – simply can’t recommend this series highly enough.

The Poe & Tilly Series

• The Puppet Show
• Black Summer
• The Curator
• Dead Ground
• The Botanist
• The Mercy Chair
• The Final Vow
• The Killer’s Mark – out next week