The Headhunters
Peter Lovesey
Soho, Apr 2008, $24.00
ISBN: 9781569474907

Near Selsey, Jo Stevens saw what she thought was a beached dolphin amongst the trash that came ashore on the beach. However, she got closer and realized she found a half naked woman dead amidst the seaweed and garbage. Chichester CID Inspector Henrietta "Hen" Mallin and her team lead the official inquiry starting with who she is and whether her death was an accident or a homicide.

However, before the cops can dig into the case, Jo finds a second corpse eerily similar to the first one she reported. This time she fears telling the cops because the coincidence is too weird and she would become the prime suspect of two murders. She fails to inform the police. When the body is reported, Hen and her subordinates focus on Stevens and even more on her boyfriend who knew both victims.

THE HEADHUNTERS is a unique English police procedural as the storyline rotates points of view between the inspector and the corpse finder; especially fascinating is reading the logical rationalization of Jo when she fails to report the second dead body to the authorities. Fans will appreciate this diamond of a tale as Hen and her CID team works on solving the two homicides while also seeking her first investigation (see THE CIRCLE).

Harriet Klausner