The Calling

Kaye Whiting went to buy a birthday present and didn't come back. When DC Goodhew hears the recording of the mysterious call made to the station, informing them that Kaye is still alive and that a man named Peter Walsh is responsbile, he knows it's more than a prank call.  Why does Mr. Walsh not seem surprised to see Goodhew at his doorstep, and who is the woman who goes to the same diner every day, just so she can watch Mr. Walsh walk out of his building with his new lover?

"In Bruce's so-so third contemporary procedural featuring Cambridge Det. Constable Gary Goodhew (after 2010's The Siren), Goodhew looks into a missing persons case. Kaye Whiting vanished while shopping for a present for her mother's 80th birthday. An early chapter reveals a suffering Whiting, bound and gagged on the shore of a lake, after she accepted a ride from the wrong familiar face. The following day, a fellow police officer, Sue Gully, fields an anonymous call from someone who ominously states that when the police find Whiting, they'll realize that she was still alive at the time of this call. The informant goes on to accuse insurance company employee Peter Walsh of being responsible for the disappearance, and states that arresting him will stop 'the killings.' Some overheated prose ('But it was then that a cold, hard sabre of guilt unsheathed itself and sliced its steel blade into her conscience') doesn't enhance the overly familiar plot. (Aug.)" Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Alison Bruce was born in Surrey but moved to Cambridge in 1998. She is the author of two other Gary Goodhew books, Cambridge Blue and The Siren. She is married with two small children.