Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham

In this series launch, Bingham introduced one of the most complex characters in crime fiction, Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths. She is a part of the investigative team at the Cardiff Police Department but most of her colleagues give her a wide birth. She is overly intense and doesn’t fit in; she has a degree in Philosophy from Cambridge and her strong analytical skills mean she gets assigned to tedious paperwork instead of the more interesting investigations. 

Her current project is an embezzlement case involving a retired policeman, Brian Penry, but when a local prostitute and her child are killed, it’s all hands on deck, and Fiona is asked to trace a debit card found at the crime scene.

From the beginning, Fiona is haunted by the pictures of the murdered six-year-old child, and fights to stay on that case, despite the doubts of her superior officer, who prefers to keep her away from the public. When she finds a connection between the two cases, he is skeptical and tells her not to get distracted by the Pendry case:

“We’ve got nothing to connect him to it and he won’t crack, anyway. As you say, this looks like an organized crime thing. Somewhere out there, they’ll be people, probably prostitutes, who know what’s going on. We find them. We hit the forensics hard. We get our killer. Okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, as in ‘I hear what you say but I propose to ignore it’ or yes as in ‘yes’? You know. The old-fashioned sort.”

I smile . . . . “I’ll make it the old-fashioned sort, shall I?”

Sometimes Fiona follows the rules, and sometimes she can’t sleep at night and decides to sneak into a suspect’s house to see what she can find! It’s amazing that she actually survives for this entire book (and series) as she is constantly putting herself into dangerous situations. She also has a mysterious past – she was sick for two years as a teenager, as sort of breakdown, although we don’t learn the details until the end of the book, and she has great difficulty relating to other people. Despite her oddities, she is an appealing character, brilliant at making inspired deductions, and the reader wants her to be successful personally and professionally.

In addition to her long-suffering supervisor, Fiona is surrounded by well-drawn characters: her father, who has a criminal past (or present), two younger sisters, and an affectionate mother who manages them all. Despite her awkwardness with her colleagues, she even acquires a boyfriend, a friendly detective sergeant. Most of the other detectives avoid her if they can or roll their eyes if they have to work closely with her but it is actually one of them who gives her a clue about her past.

There are six books about Fiona, all fascinating and intricate, and some are very scary because of the crazy risks she takes. I decided to reread this one because it’s more than five years since book 6 and my sister had said there is a new book coming, The House at the End of the World. However, it does not yet have a pub date, which gives you plenty of time to catch up on this addictive series!

This is my sixth book of the year for the Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge.

Title: Talking to the Dead
Author: Harry Bingham
Publication: Delacorte Press, hardcover, 2012
Genre: Suspense
Source: Library