Library's review
The second entry in Bingham's innovative Fiona Griffiths series, about a Detective Constable in South Wales whose personal situation make her both a very good detective and a very bad team player. In this one, Fiona and colleagues are faced with the discovery of two dismembered corpses: one turns
It's hard to overstate how interesting Fiona is as a main character. On one hand, these are standard police procedural mysteries, though tightly plotted and peopled with interesting characters, good guys and bad guys alike. On the other hand, the notion of a first-person narrator who openly acknowledges her personal (and ongoing) history of mental illness is not one I can recall ever encountering before. Bingham excels with his sympathetic and unsentimental portrayal of Fiona: She asks for no sympathy or accommodation either from the reader or her police bosses. Most valuably, Fiona is portrayed as a productive member of society not despite her mental illness but in many ways because of it. It's an invaluable viewpoint in a world where too often mental illness is treated as something shameful or as a stigma that completely cancels out any abilities the person might have.
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out to be a missing persons case from a few years earlier, and the other is a recent murder. The discovery of the various body parts in the same general vicinity argues for the two cases to be connected, but the police struggle to make a connection between the victims until Fiona expands the range of possible motives.It's hard to overstate how interesting Fiona is as a main character. On one hand, these are standard police procedural mysteries, though tightly plotted and peopled with interesting characters, good guys and bad guys alike. On the other hand, the notion of a first-person narrator who openly acknowledges her personal (and ongoing) history of mental illness is not one I can recall ever encountering before. Bingham excels with his sympathetic and unsentimental portrayal of Fiona: She asks for no sympathy or accommodation either from the reader or her police bosses. Most valuably, Fiona is portrayed as a productive member of society not despite her mental illness but in many ways because of it. It's an invaluable viewpoint in a world where too often mental illness is treated as something shameful or as a stigma that completely cancels out any abilities the person might have.
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Description
Investigating the discovery of human remains that have been frozen for a decade, D.C. Fiona Griffiths learns that the victim was a missing student with possible connections to Griffiths' father, a case that is further complicated by a recent murder.
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2013