The Stranger You Know – Jane Casey – Cleopatra Loves Books

This is the fourth book in the Maeve Kerrigan series which I was lucky enough to receive a copy in return for this unbiased review.

Synopsis

He meets women.
He gains their trust.
He kills them.

That’s all Maeve Kerrigan knows about the man she is hunting. Three women have been strangled in their homes by the same sadistic killer. With no sign of a break-in, every indication shows that they let him in.

But the evidence is pointing at a shocking suspect: DI Josh Derwent, Maeve’s colleague.

Maeve refuses to believe he could be involved, but how well does she really know him? Because this isn’t the first time Derwent’s been accused of murder…

Maeve born into a family of Irish stock is an attractive female detective with maverick tendencies who has worked with Josh Derwent closely. In previous books Maeve has found herself in some pretty uncomfortable situations having acquired a stalker and a fellow policeman boyfriend and a boss who is taking money for information along the way.

Maeve’s relationship with Josh Derwent has been difficult, she finds him hard to deal with but when she is told to keep her superiors suspicions secret she doesn’t know what to do for the best. To make it worse the young women that he is suspected of killing are all believed to be linked to a killing 20 years previously so Maeve is juggling a cold case review as well as dealing with the horror of lonely young women being killed in their own homes.

This is a solid good read, the plot holds together well with Jane Casey weaving the story with wry humour and clever observations through a number of characters, both suspects and witnesses, time periods and across London boroughs. I thought I had the killer quite early on but I was wrong which is a bonus and marks this out as a good book. The characters have developed well with Maeve coming across far better than she did in the first outing. This book also gives us much more of an insight into Josh and why he acts the way he does.

This works well as a stand-alone book but I’m sure anyone who picks this one up will be strongly tempted to buy the three previous books.

Previous Books in the series

The Burning

The Reckoning

The Last Girl

Jane Casey has also written

The Missing