The Dark by Sharon Bolton

Title: The Dark
Author: Sharon Bolton
Publication: Orion, paperback, 2022
Genre: Suspense, series
Setting: London

Description: When a baby is kidnapped near Tower Bridge by terrorists, off duty police officer Lacey Flint is in her kayak and manages to rescue the child from the Thames. Her erstwhile boyfriend DCI Mark Joesbury is now heading up a counter-terrorism department with expert computer staff who monitor cyber activity to anticipate trouble. His team has uncovered a group of women-hating men planning a series of events to terrify women, and Lacey and her journalist friend Emma are two of the targets. The ringleader of this group plans to blackmail Lacey with a secret she thought only two people knew: who she really is.

My Impression: I was thrilled when I heard that Sharon Bolton was going to take a break from her standalone suspense to return to Lacey Flint. This is her fifth book about an intrepid police detective with a strange affinity for the Thames and a mysterious past. The Dark begins with a young woman on a cliff in Eastbourne with a dead friend, considering suicide, who meets a young man, also thinking about killing himself. She changes her mind, forgets him, and joins the police force but he resented her indifference because it is yet more evidence that he is ignored and unappreciated by women and remembered. It seems both farfetched and inevitable that twelve years later this disturbed man would be the mastermind behind a terrorist plot to terrorize women into perpetual subservience:

“Why would four men conspire to abduct a baby and set it afloat on the Thames?”

Silence in the room for several seconds, then Lacey said, “Publicity.”

All eyes turned to her.

“Publicity for what?” Neil asked.

Lacey shrugged. “No idea. But if the parents are telling the truth and it was nothing to do with them, then it was done to attract attention. That’s what I was thinking all the time I was trying to catch up with the inflatable. This is a stunt.”

Lacey’s former hard-as-nails boss Dana, now an amusingly overprotective new parent, wants her back in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) because Lacey is a gifted (if foolhardy) detective but Lacey prefers the lower profile of policing the marine unit. She has also withdrawn from her on-again-off-again relationship with Mark, for fear of damaging his career, although she cannot explain this to him. Luckily, trying to outwit the MenMatter terrorist plot brings them back together but there are some terrifying moments along the way. This may be the best book of the series in terms of tension and a plot that is over the top but works while you are reading it (although I did guess the perp) but it is best to start with book 1, Now You See Me. In fact, I made a quick trip to the library to get it for a reread, so obviously I recommend it!

Source: Copy purchased for my sister (from London because Minotaur still hasn't published it in the US). This is my twenty-third and last book of the year for Carol's 2022 Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge.