Still Waters

by: Nigel McCrery

Published by: Pantheon Books (July 22 release)

Reviewed by Diane Snyder

Author Nigel McCrery, who worked with the police for nine years, has written many British crime mysteries including one series. In Still Waters, he introduces DCI Mark Lapslie with the Essex Police.

DCI Lapslie has been on indefinite sick leave or “gardening leave” for the past six months because of a rare disorder known as synaesthesia that causes a person to experience tastes or flavors when they hear sounds. Mark Lapslie had reached the point in his disorder that he was unable to tolerate being in a noisy, chaotic room such as in a police station without the feeling that he was getting a four-course meal shoved at him and some other, not so pleasant tastes.

Lapslie is also separated from his family because he cannot be around the constant noises of his two children and the onset of tastes they elicit. He is experienced, educated with a Masters Degree in Criminal Psychology, and he’s older, with a tenacious streak that has given him the reputation of never giving up.

Lapslie has his sick leave interrupted with a phone call. A decaying body has been found and Lapslie’s name was connected from an old case. In this unusual approach to a psychological thriller, the story follows both Lapslie and the killer in a chilling and gruesome tale of hide and seek and the multiple murders of mostly elderly women. The real identity of the murderess is unknown, sometimes even to herself as she takes on the many identities and lives of the women as she kills them. As Lapslie tracks what he originally believed to be one homicide, he begins to suspect that there is much more to this case as he is being deliberately blocked by those with another agenda – he is constantly stonewalled by the same office that called him back from sick leave.

Macabre at times and hard to put down, this is a well-crafted, complex plot that delivers surprises in the end and has strong and believable characters that grab your attention.

Hopefully Still Waters is a first in a new series to feature DCI Mark Lapslie.

Armchair Interviews agrees.