Barry Maitland Spider Trap

Spider Trap

Barry Maitland

St. Martin's, Oct 2007, $24.95

ISBN 9780312369088

In the West Indian section of South London, someone assassinates gangland style two young girls. Both shot in the head, the vicious killing shakes up the city as the media goes on a feeding frenzy with the image of the deaths of innocence.

The brass of New Scotland Yard knows the homicides require they provide a major investigation not so much to solve the insidious killings and bring their predator to justice, but more politically needed to quiet the noisy press and to calm upset citizens. Adding to the chaotic fears, a schoolboy finds the remains of three corpses in an abandoned Brixton rail yard; they have been dead for almost a quarter of a century. Ballistics affirms that the gun used then is the same weapon that recently was used to kill the girls. Detective Sargent. Kathy Kolla investigates the present day murders while Detective Chief Inspector David Brock works on the twenty-four years old homicides.

Although the suspects (yesterday and today) seem as lifeless as the corpses, the latest Kolla-Brock police procedural is an entertaining whodunit. The dual investigations are fun to follow as they share a murder weapon but seemingly little else. Fans will enjoy the inquiries made by the two cops whose separate investigations begin to intertwine.

Harriet Klausner