"The Suffering of Strangers" by Caro Ramsay

An audio book.

Glasgow. 2017. DI Costello sees married Archie Walker (Costella's sometime lover?) with a younger (30s) woman. She's given a case where Roberta and James' baby is taken from a car, replaced by a Down's syndrome baby. She's suspicious of James.

DCI Anderson (Costello's ex-boss) is working on cold cases. He visits the house of Gillian Witherspoon (an old victim) to find that she's suddenly died. His wife sacrificed her life to save their daughter Clare. He has a son, Peter. He helped a victim, Paige. He's single in a house worth £1.2 million. He visits Sally Braithewaite, someone he knew at university, a rape victim who could help the police promote their activities. She's married to Andrew, who used to do obstetrics but is now a cosmetic surgeon.

Abegail has a medical degree. Her husband is George. Jane and Malcolm are her children. Her sister Valerie has a law degree. Archie is her godfather. She has a drinking problem and wants a child. She may have tried to influence Archie. Her husband had an affair. Sally confesses to Anderton (who was recording the conversation) that she's had the child caused by the rape, and Andrew was selling babies and had kidnapped the child. She falls off a rooftop terrace. Pushed?

Actually, Sally (or Valerie?) abducted the child. Sally had sold her baby to a family friend. The Down's syndrome child has Anderton's DNA - sally's child was his.

With audio books I have trouble remembering all the characters clearly. In this book characters like Libby Hamilton and Paige have cameo roles that bloat the cast. I'm guessing that they appear in other books of the series. The characters in general are well written, and the plot's sufficiently interesting.

Other reviews

• Kirkus reviews
• Rob Weir (My late-to-the-table status notwithstanding, this is simply not a very well written book. ... This novel is overpopulated with characters. Again, I presume that much of the detective force has been introduced in earlier novels, but be wary of reviews that say this book works as a standalone novel. It does not. I had to make lists of characters and relationships to keep them straight. This is problematic on several levels. First, my list was much longer than it needed be. Ramsay drops names in ways that give a new reader few clues as to whether the character in question is relevant, or just police station wallpaper. The same is true of past and pending cases mentioned. Second, Ramsay complicates matters by introducing new characters whose relationships to the story are murky. ... Ramsay brings all of this to a conclusion through logic-defying subterfuge. If that's not enough–and believe me, it is–Ramsay tacks on a cloudburst of coincidences that revolve around Anderson.)