The Close

DS Maeve Kerrigan is off her game, and she knows it. A coercive, controlling and ultimately violent partner has left more than physical scars. As Maeve is still more competent than many officers, most of her colleagues haven’t noticed, but DI Josh Derwent knows her better than anyone, and he’s always been Maeve’s nemesis.

The murder of London doctor Hassan Dawoud should be Maeve’s main focus, but she’s finding it hard to concentrate and Derwent, as arrogant, dangerous and attractive as a hunting cat, has noticed. Dawoud, dead from blunt force trauma to the head, was found dumped in a car outside the hospital where he worked. Suspicion naturally falls on his husband, Cameron, particularly after a neighbour admits to hearing violent arguments between the two men. Although this should be a routine murder investigation, Maeve struggles to get a grip on the interviews and is painfully aware that she’s floundering, a far cry from her usual incisive self.

Then she’s offered the chance of an entirely different investigation – an undercover assignment watching a house believed to be a staging post for vulnerable adults who subsequently disappear. The victims are the sort of people with no one to look out for them, no one to care if they go missing. But in Davy Bidwell’s case, someone does care. When his desperately emaciated body is found in a derelict house in London, his brother wants answers. Suspicion falls on Davy Bidwell’s last known address, the house in Jellicoe Close, an ordinary property in a decent town but it seems that others who’ve passed through there have also dropped out of sight. As Bidwell’s brother is married to the mayor’s formidable personal assistant, the Met’s Assistant Commission comes under pressure to provide answers.

Time away from her usual work in nice surroundings sounds idyllic. There’s only one snag, Maeve will have to pose as Josh Derwent’s girlfriend …

Yes, I admit it, I’m a DI Derwent fan, and have been ever since he first strolled confidently into Maeve Kerrigan’s life ten books ago, armed with barbed comments and an un-PC attitude. Derwent, a former soldier, is not the easiest man to get on with, but he’s also the man who stopped the attack by the violent boyfriend that could easily have killed her. He also stood by her during the ordeal of taking the witness stand to ensure her attacker ended up behind bars. Over the course of the series, he’s gone from antagonistic boss to friend, but that doesn’t mean he’s above needling her, pushing her and constantly being a total pain in Maeve’s arse.

When she’s thrown together into a semblance of domestic bliss with Derwent, it’s hard for Maeve to ignore the fact that her boss is an attractive man, but he’s also in a relationship with someone else, another damaged woman he helped, and he’s committed to both her and her young son. So Maeve has no choice but to pull on her big girl knickers and get on with the job of getting to know the residents of Jellicoe Close under the guise of pet-sitting a friend’s ditzy dog.

As expected, there’s a lot going on beneath the seemingly tranquil exterior. Jane Casey expertly peels open the layers of some very different lives, from the shy, awkward antiques dealer to the terrified elderly woman with dementia who claims to have seen the devil at work.

As well as watching Judy Thwaites and her dodgy son, Maeve continues to help rookie detective DC Georgia Shaw – not always Maeve’s favourite person – with the Dawoud murder investigation by analysing interview notes and suggesting lines of enquiry. The two storylines work well together with Casey handling Maeve’s complicated feelings for Derwent without turning the book into a self-absorbed emotional angst-fest. The pair are coppers not rom-com stars and Casey never loses sight of that.

The series remains as fresh as it did when Maeve and Derwent first appeared. I jumped on The Close as soon as it dropped on my mat, and most definitely wasn’t disappointed. As ever, Jane Casey knows how to push all my buttons. I even trusted her with Pippin the dog!