Black Summer by M. W. Craven

After The Puppet Show, a new storm is coming…

Jared Keaton, chef to the stars. Charming. Charismatic. Psychopath… He’s currently serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of his daughter, Elizabeth. Her body was never found and Keaton was convicted largely on the testimony of Detective Sergeant Washington Poe.

So when a young woman staggers into a remote police station with irrefutable evidence that she is Elizabeth Keaton, Poe finds himself on the wrong end of an investigation, one that could cost him much more than his career.

Helped by the only person he trusts, the brilliant but socially awkward Tilly Bradshaw, Poe races to answer the only question that matters: how can someone be both dead and alive at the same time?

And then Elizabeth goes missing again – and all paths of investigation lead back to Poe.

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I thoroughly enjoyed The Puppet Show when I read it earlier this year, and stumbling across the next four books in the series at bargain prices, I couldn’t resist stocking up.  Having a felt a little out of sorts recently, I decided that it was time to return to Poe and Bradshaw – a strange comfort blanket, perhaps, but it worked for me – and I ended up binge-reading both Black Summer and The Curator back-to-back. 

Black Summer sees Poe forced to return to one of his previous cases.  Celebrity chef, Jared Keaton, was arrested and charged with the murder of his daughter, Elizabeth, although a body was never found.  He’s spent six years in prison for that crime, and so when a woman claiming to be Elizabeth turns up claiming that she was abducted and escaped, it’s a shock to all.  It sees Poe wrongfooted, as he was utterly convinced of Jared’s guilt, and things take a stranger turn when Elizabeth disappears once again, with all the evidence now pointing to Washington Poe.  With Elizabeth having been proven to be who she claims, did Poe really get it so badly wrong all those years before and send an innocent man to prison, or is there something more sinister underway?

I can’t help but admire Craven’s plotting.  I won’t go into the details for obvious reasons, but it’s utterly gripping throughout, and I read it in two sittings, unable to put it down without reading just one more chapter (and another, and another) to find out what was going on.  Craven writes incredibly complex cases – I didn’t have a clue how such a thing might be pulled off, but I love the way in which the investigation comes to a close – it’s a fantastic conclusion, which made sense without being so farfetched as to leave me rolling my eyes.  And the writing is great as well – these are well-written novels, and I love the touch of humour that Craven injects into the narrative, there were lines that had me chuckling despite this being on the darker side of crime fiction.

Poe is an absolutely fantastic character.  A brilliant detective, he’s extremely thorough, and so the idea that he got it wrong on the original Jared Keaton case seems unlikely.  With the body never having been discovered, there is that element of doubt, however, both for the reader and for Poe himself, and it’s interesting to see him brought down a notch.  And a minority of individuals on the Cumbrian police force are positively gleeful at this turn of events, seeing it as a way to get one over on Poe who, while very much an excellent character, doesn’t always play well with others.  With Poe desperately needing help on this case, there’s only one person he can turn to…

Matilda (Tilly) Bradshaw is one of all-time favourite characters and it’s Tilly that really sets this series apart from others in my opinion.  A mathematical genius, a somewhat sheltered upbringing means that she’s a little awkward in social situations, and her occasionally inappropriate comments and questions often add a little humour to the narrative.  She works as a civilian analyst, supporting investigations from a more technical and data-driven perspective.  She and Poe became friends during the events of The Puppet Show, and he turns to her now to help him unravel the reappearance and disappearance of Elizabeth Keaton.  If I have any slight niggle with this second novel, it’s that Tilly doesn’t fully arrive until about a quarter of the way in, and I missed her at the beginning!

Black Summer is another fantastic instalment in a series that I’m now kicking myself for having not read sooner.  While the individual crimes mean these work as standalone novels, I do recommend starting with The Puppet Show if you intend to read these.  I think that the reader benefits from the backstory to what is a rather unusual (but utterly brilliant) character pairing in Poe and Bradshaw.  Additionally, Poe made a shocking discovery about his parentage in The Puppet Show, and that thread is picked up again here, and seems likely to continue for a few more novels yet, an extra element in the narrative that I find very intriguing – I’m interested to see how it plays out.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy darker crime novels.