'What if I told you,' he said, 'that I believe my mother's life to be in danger?'
Robertson Bennet returns to Edinburgh after a 25-year absence in search of his parents and his inheritance. But both have disappeared. A quick, routine police check should be enough - and Detective Inspector Helen Birch has enough on her plate trying to help her brother, Charlie, after an assault in prison. But all her instincts tell her not to let this case go. And so she digs.
George and Phamie Bennet were together for a long time. No one can ever really know the secrets kept between husband and wife. But as Birch slowly begins to unravel the truth, terrible crimes start to rise to the surface.
I'd like to thank Hodder & Stoughton for my copy of Cover Your Tracks to review via NetGalley.
When I received a copy of Claire Askew's latest book A Matter of Time it reminded that I still hadn't read the previous book in the DI Helen Birch series, Cover Your Tracks, that's been on my Kindle for almost two years. So as the saying goes, better late than never I've finally read the book and can finally share my review on the blog today.
Cover Your Tracks is the third book in the series and a word of warning, if you've not read either of the first two books then you're missing a chunk of the storyline regarding DI Helen Birch's personal story although there are recaps that you can pick up the gist of what has happened previously. I had read All the Hidden Truths but hadn't read What You Pay For prior to starting to read this book but as soon as I realised that I had missed a major storyline I put this book aside and read the previous book before restarting reading this one as personally I like to know what has happened previously without having to try and work it out from snippets that are drip fed.
When Robertson Bennet turns up at the station wanting to speak to DI Helen Birch, the last thing that she expects is that she'll find herself dealing with a missing persons. A missing persons case with a difference, in so much that it doesn't seem to be a recent case and that no-one seems to know exactly when the elderly couple George and Phamie were last seen.
And the more she hears about the couple, the more it piques her interest as there's definitely a lot more to the story than first meets the eye especially when she discovers that Robertson has been estranged from his parents for years. So why the change of name, why has he only contacted the policy now but the most important question of all is where are they? It's only over time that we get answers to these and discover that DI Birch had every reason to be tenacious in her quest, even if others around her think that it's a dead-end case. The deeper she digs, the more an unsavoury story is uncovered that affects so many more than they first thought.
Although the missing persons investigation is at the heart of the book, we also get to see more of the personal side of Helen through her relationships with her own brother Charlie who she was estranged from for many years as well as her blossoming relationship with her partner Anjan who has been by in her life professionally, and now personally. Another of the characters I have enjoyed getting to know throughout this series is DC Amy Kato who played a central role in this investigation, trying to get to know more about the Macdonald's through reading the journals of Phamie which were discovered during a search of their house.
Overall Cover Your Tracks is a great addition to what is turning out to be a fantastic series and I hope that we'll be seeing more of DI Helen Birch for years to come.
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