"Darkness, Darkness" by John Harvey

An audio book.

30 years after the miner's strike, a body is found of a woman who disappeared during the strike - Jenny Hardwick. Charlie Resnick, an old jazz lover, has retired, but he still does voluntary police work. Kath (black, 33, a DI) asks him to help with the cold case because he remembered the original case and was involved with policing then. Jenny was a picket. Her husband was a scab. There are 2 timelines. One is the investigation. The other is set in the time of the strikes, mentioning Scargill, flying pickets, agent provocateurs, etc. Jenny was gradually promoted to a speaker, going around the country. She may also have been a courier, carrying cash when the miner union's bank account was frozen. She had a lover then, Danny, who pestered her. They'd make love once in her kitchen.

The original investigation was done by local cop Keith, now married to Jenny's sister, Jill. The body was found under the extension of another house - who did the extension? Strikers, paid by the day in cash. Trevor, a sensationalist writer, thinks that the murder was by a serial killer, still inside. Or was the husband jealous? The youngest son seems unstable and is hard to track down.

Kath is being harrassed by a past lover, Arbas, and is facing discrimination at work (fast-tracked because of gender and race?) Charlie is haunted by the violent death of Lynn (the woman he met following his divorce?)

On one of her courier jobs, Jenny's contact wasn't there so she had to follow instructions to go to a house and meet a man there. The house was being extended.

Danny is found dead of hypothermia in Scottish mountains. Kath is violently assaulted by Arbas. Reading about it in the paper, Jill visits Kath in hospital and tells her something. Charlie visits Keith. He was the man who Jenny met. He had taken the money. There was a fight because he had demanded sex.

Kath retires from the force.

I like the Midlands characters. I believed the Kath voice/behaviour less. I enjoyed the book as a whole, maybe because I remember the minor's strike times, so the historical details mattered to me.