When DI Vera Stanhope finds the body of a woman in the sauna room of her local gym, she wonders briefly if, for once in her life, she's uncovered a simple death from natural causes. But a closer inspection reveals ligature marks around the victim's throat - death is never that simple.
Doing what she does best, Vera pulls her team together and sets them interviewing staff and those connected to the victim, while she and colleague, Sergeant Joe Ashworth, work to find a motive. While Joe struggles to reconcile his home life with the demands made on him by the job, Vera revels being back in charge of an investigation again. Death has never made her feel so alive.
And when they discover that the victim had worked in social services, and had been involved in a shocking case involving a young child, then it appears obvious that the two are somehow connected. Though things are never as they seem...
In 1936, the Nazi are little more than loud, brutish bores to
fifteen-year old Stephan Neuman, the son of a wealthy and influential
Jewish family and budding playwright whose playground extends from
Vienna’s streets to its intricate underground tunnels. Stephan’s best
friend and companion is the brilliant Žofie-Helene, a Christian girl
whose mother edits a progressive, anti-Nazi newspaper. But the two
adolescents’ carefree innocence is shattered when the Nazis’ take
control.
There is hope in the darkness, though. Truus Wijsmuller, a member of the Dutch resistance, risks her life smuggling Jewish children out of Nazi Germany to the nations that will take them. It is a mission that becomes even more dangerous after the Anschluss—Hitler’s annexation of Austria—as, across Europe, countries close their borders to the growing number of refugees desperate to escape.
Tante Truus, as she is known, is determined to save as many children as she can. After Britain passes a measure to take in at-risk child refugees from the German Reich, she dares to approach Adolf Eichmann, the man who would later help devise the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” in a race against time to bring children like Stephan, his young brother Walter, and Žofie-Helene on a perilous journey to an uncertain future abroad.
Vera watched him walk to his car, the champagne in one hand, the flowers in the other. Thought that if she´d been married to someone like Joe Ashworth, she´d be so bored she´d commit murder herself.
A hot summer on the Northumberland coast, and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. Luke has been strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers.
This stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team intrigued. But then a second body - that of beautiful young teacher Lily Marsh - is discovered laid out in a rock pool, the water strewn with flowers. Now, Vera must work quickly to find this dramatist, this killer who is making art out of death.
Clues are slow to emerge from those who had known Luke and Lily, but Vera soon finds herself drawn towards the curious group of friends who discovered Lily's body. What unites these four men and one woman? Are they really the close-knit, trustworthy unit they claim to be? As local residents are forced to share their private lives and those of their loved ones, sinister secrets are slowly unearthed.
And all the while the killer remains in their midst, waiting for an opportunity to prepare another beautiful, watery grave ...
Rebecka har flytt sin trasiga familjesituation och inte träffat sin mamma på flera år, men när mormor hamnar på sjukhus återvänder hon motvilligt till Skåne. I breven och dagboken får en berättelse från andra världskriget liv. Den unga Anna är förälskad i Luca och beredd att riskera allt när han ber henne om hjälp med att smuggla danska judar över sundet, omedveten om att ingripandet kommer att förändra deras liv för alltid.
Rebecka läser andaktsfullt och inser att hon inte är den enda som behöver försonas med sitt förflutna. Men finns det fortfarande tid nog för familjen att hitta tillbaka till varandra?
En "feel good-roman" där jag inte direkt fängslas av språket och där man ganska snart kan ana det mesta av handlingen. Jag fångas ändå och läser hela boken och är nöjd med det!
Över 900 sidor och det var ändå tråkigt när den tog slut.
