Description
From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. May's excellent fourth Enzo McLeod mystery (after 2008's Blacklight Blue ) takes the Scottish forensics wizard, who impulsively bet his daughter's boyfriend he could solve seven cold cases, to the Ile de Groix off the coast of Brittany, where he may finally meet his Waterloo. The quaint island is the site of the notorious 1990 slaying of tropical disease specialist and entomologist Adam Killian in his study. For two decades the crime scene—and the cryptic hints Killian supposedly left to identify his killer—have remained as undisturbed as an insect frozen in amber. Can Macleod, distracted by personal dramas that involve his sometime lover, Charlotte, and a menacing stalker, decipher the message—and stay in one piece? With its intricate plot, compelling characters, and bombshell denouement, this unsettling Enzo Files installment is a must-read. (Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Prolific May’s fourth book in the Enzo Files series (Blacklight Blue, 2008) finds the forensic scientist on one of the small Channel Islands, which are more like his home country of Scotland than his current home in Southern France. Enzo uses a deft combination of cutting-edge forsenic technology, his own insight, and traditional detecting to solve his latest cold case, which involves an elderly man dying of cancer, shot in his own study, whose will stipulates that nothing in the study be touched until his son arrives home to receive a secret message. But the son dies soon after the father, and when Enzo arrives, the room has sat virtually untouched for nearly 20 years. Enzo is a fascinating character in his own right, and his complicated personal life only adds to the appeal. Readers new to the series may not be entirely sure why Enzo is dedicated to solving a series of cold cases, but since the majority of the book and the entirety of the mystery stands alone, anyone who enjoys forensic mysteries should be able to leap right in. --Jessica Moyer Peter May won the Scottish Young Journalist of the Year Award at 21 and had his first novel published at 26. He went on to become a successful Scottish television dramatist. He lives in France with his wife Janice Halley. Read more
Features & Highlights
- A promise made to a dying man leads forensics ace Enzo Macleod, a Scot who's been teaching in France for many years, to the study which the man's heir has preserved for nearly twenty years. The dead man left several clues there designed to reveal the killer's identity to the man's son, but ironically the son died soon after the father. So begins the fourth of seven cold cases written up in a bestselling book by Parisian journalist Roger Raffin that Enzo rashly boasted he could solve (he's been successful with the first three). It takes Enzo to a tiny island off the coast of Brittany in France, where he must confront the hostility of locals who have no desire to see the infamous murder back in the headlines. An attractive widow, a man charged but acquitted of the murder--but still the viable suspect, a crime scene frozen in time, a dangerous hell hole by the cliffs, and a collection of impenetrable messages, make this one of Enzo's most difficult cases.
