#BlogTour-‘Old Bones’ by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

About the book…

A young couple discover human remains buried in the garden of their new house: could this be the resting place of 14-year-old Amanda Knight, who disappeared from the same garden two decades before, and was never seen again?

The problem comes almost as a relief to DCI Slider, still suffering from the fallout of his previous case. He is not popular with the Powers That Be, and his immediate boss, Detective Superintendent Porson, reckons that at least this little puzzle will keep Slider out of trouble. After all, with a murder twenty years in the past, this is the coldest of cold cases. Most of the suspects and principal players are now dead too, and all passion is long spent … Or is it?

‘Old Bones’ by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is published by Canongate on 1st August.

And I have a copy to giveaway!

If you would like to be in with a chance to win a paperback copy for yourself, please comment below, follow the blog  and tell me one thing-what cold case are you obsessed with? Open internationally , I will draw a name from the hat on the 31st August! Good Luck!

Here to whet your appetitie is my review-

This is the first Bill Slider book and Cynthia Harrod-Eagles book that I have read and I loved it.
I checked the copyright several times as there is very much a retro feel to the story-there are DNA tests that take a real world time frame to come back, very real dogged policework which relies on communication skills, eye for details which has the feel of an older book.
Bill Slider is a detective on the outs-an investigation into child sex abuse and exploitation which reached as high as a commanding officer has left him with a small coterie of loyal staff anddetermination to make investigation Neptune bring justice to the girls he dealt with in Book 1 . There are enough details and carrying on of the story in this, book 2 to make me want to go back and read it whilst carrying on the story as a side plot.
The main story concerns the discovery of human remians in a residential back garden.
The owners are furious, and demanding compensation from the police in a darkly funny scene where the police have to search the whole property-the spectre of Rose and Fred West and John Christie looming over the proceedings.
The bones turn out to belong to a young girl, and here begins the paper trail as the detectives work backwards through time to establish the previous owners, the way the street was laid out 25 years ago as well as identifying who the bones belong to.
The key to this book is that the characters are built through the dialogue. Most of the story would easily be doubled by another writer, here the author skilfully uses vernacular and colloquialisms to go back and forth between suspects, witnesses and past residents. You have a sense that Cynthia Harrod-Eagles has a keen ear for the way people talk and what they reveal is as important as the pasues they take-or don’t-between breaths.
I worked out what was going on half way through the book but that absolutely did not spoil my enjoyment of this police procedural-the joy is in reading the journey of the whoudunnit rather than just the thrill of working it out.
I am hopeful that there will be a book 3 -maybe more!-in this series and would recommend it to fans of police procedurals, detective fiction and mysteries.

About the author…

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (aka Emma Woodhouse, Elizabeth Bennett)

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles was born on 13 August 1948 in Shepherd’s Bush, London, England, where was educated at Burlington School, a girls’ charity school founded in 1699, and at the University of Edinburgh and University College London, where she studied English, history and philosophy.

She had a variety of jobs in the commercial world, starting as a junior cashier at Woolworth’s and working her way down to Pensions Officer at the BBC.

She wrote her first novel while at university and in 1972 won the Young Writers’ Award with The Waiting Game. The birth of the MORLAND DYNASTY series enabled Cynthia Harrod-Eagles to become a full-time writer in 1979. The series was originally intended to comprise twelve volumes, but it has proved so popular that it has now been extended to thirty-four.

In 1993 she won the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romantic Novel of the Year Award with Emily, the third volume of her Kirov Saga, a trilogy set in nineteenth century Russia. (less)

Links-https://www.cynthiaharrodeagles.com/

Twitter @canongatebooks