This is book 8 in the Inspector Erlendur mystery series.  Themes of loss, regret, and secrets are weaved throughout connecting Erlendur’s personal life and relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, a series of old missing persons cases, and a current suicide.  Erlendur works mainly solo in this book as he is not really on an official case for the most part.  A woman has hung herself and it is found to be suicide, however Erlendur, at the prompting of one of the woman’s friends has to know why.  The area is the same as earlier missing persons cases, definitely cold cases but never closed.  Finally, his daughter is convinced that a meeting between Erlendur and her mother will resolve old issues and give her the family she is craving.

Really well done mystery with lots of interconnected stories and clues from one plot line to the next.  This is not really a traditional police procedural but more of a straight forward mystery.  Erlendur is a great character and stood well on his own without his team to interact with and assist with the case(s).

  Just finished this, the 12th book in the Inspector Morse series.  Such a bittersweet read, knowing what I know about Morse and that I have almost reached the end of the series.  I kept putting the book down to make it last longer.  Great character work is displayed in this depiction of Morse and in the “persons of interest” .   Morse’s bad habits are catching up with him and we see foreshadowing of what is to come.  The mystery is intriguing and it is really engaging to watch Morse and Lewis work through it, playing off of one another.  Strange also has a plot line here that is pointing to the 13th  and final book in the series.

The piece at the end brought me to tears and made me commit to rereading the series once I am done.  Very moody writing here, feelings of regret and melancholy tinged with some slivers of hope.  5 star read!