The Birthday by Carol Wyer

I have been really enjoying the DI Robyn Carter books and thought I would try out the author's new series focusing on another female police officer, this time Natalie Ward.  Apart from the similarities of their jobs the two characters are poles apart which I wasn't really expecting.  Somehow I was anticipating the two women to be mostly interchangeable and that these books were simply a chance to move the setting.  This time our protagonist is a married mother who is struggling to deal with the complexities of her job whilst keeping a home going for her two teenage children and recently made redundant husband.  For my money her character is drawn really well and the balance between the need to do your job well and to financially support your family without alienating them is realistic - being the only bread winner is not easy for anybody and having experienced that maybe I felt more kindly towards the character.

The investigation is realistically handled with a lot time spent seemingly going around in circles as no new evidence comes to light and what evidence they do have is limited.  You can feel the team's frustration leaking off the page in places and even though you know it will all be resolved by the end of the book the sense of tension is built well.  I will readily admit that Natalie and her team figured things out before I did as to the perpetrator which probably goes some way to my high rating on this book.

I did find the sections where the murderer has their say rather extraneous this time around as they didn't really give the reader any insight that the police didn't have.  It also served to break any sympathy we may have had with the killer, they clearly had a neglectful upbringing where nobody saw how disturbed they were or even really cared about them but somehow no sympathy is generated for them.

I really enjoyed the book but the Robyn Carter series is, on the whole, better.  I will try the next Natalie Ward book but I don't think I will stick with this one as much.