Lynda La Plante The Red Dahlia

The Red Dahlia

Lynda La Plante

Touchstone, Jul 2007, $14.00

ISBN: 1416532196

In London a young woman is found murdered near the Thames. Former lovers, Detective Inspector Anna Travis and Detective Chief Inspector James Langton are assigned to investigate although neither are fully comfortable working together and because of the level of brutality that the victim suffered at the hands of her raging culprit.

Both DI Travis and DCI Langton fear this will prove not to be the first such horrid homicide and their concerns prove right when a second battered female is found. Soon afterwards, letters begin to arrive similar to what haunted Los Angeles five decades ago when the unsolved Black Dahlia murder occurred. As the vicious killer scorns the two sleuths as being pathetic losers, Travis and Langton know number three is coming if they continue to fail to uncover the identity of the Red Dahlia Avenger.

The second Anna Travis English police procedural (see ABOVE SUSPICION) contains an interesting premise that grips the audience from the start. The story line focuses strongly on the police work in sub-atomic levels of detail that some will feel overwhelming while others will appreciate what a cop must do to solve a well publicized case. Travis is the star but she is not Jane Tennison as readers will feel the lead investigator is too professionally detached from the murders showing little disgust, anger or any emotion. Still this is a fine whodunit with the inspectors struggling to find a Prime Suspect.

Harriet Klausner