"Because she looked away" by Alison Bruce

An audio book, mostly Ronnie's first-person PoV with passages of Fenton's first-person PoV.

Ronnie (Veronica) is moving to Cambridge after 8 years being a policewoman in London. She's moving in with her half-brother Alex who lives with his son Noah, 8. She recalls when she was 3 and her brother George was 5, on each side of their mother. Each night she recalls watching her half sister Jodie die. It happened 6 weeks before. Jodie had thrown herself from a multi-storey car park, having called for Ronnie first to tell her not to let "him" know. Ronnie has not kept in touch with her father.

Ronnie's asked in for questioning. She finds out from a young colleague, Malackie Henry, that Jodie's name has been mentioned in association with a convicted gambler Nigel Beckett, husband of a policewoman. Ronnie contacts the wife (Linda, who's since had a stroke) and questions her husband in prison. He warns her not to investigate further - he fears for his family's safety. Lots of money that he'd won has never been accounted for.

Linda tells Ronnie about the death of a young local policewoman involved in her husband's case, Kirsten McCloud, found drugged, tied and killed in her own bath.

Jodie had once told Ronnie how she'd woken up once in a situation like McCloud's - drugged, raped but alive. The rapist was Noah's biological father. It had happened when she was in her first term at Cambridge. She left University soon after. So there's a connection between Jodie's death and the Beckett case. But how had her colleague known? He'd been told to leak the info by his boss Fenton. In the Lord Byron pub, Trumpington, Fenton tells her about Operation Byron - someone is blackmailing people. Fenton had recently been tipped off about 3 people involved in the blackmailing - Beckett, Jodie, and the dead Dr Zoe Richardson. Now that her sister's seemingly involved, Ronnie shouldn't investigate the case.

They interview Zoe's final partner - Prof Colin Knox. At the end they weren't living together because of her drinking problems. The prof recalls Jodie. They interview others who were blackmailed.

Ronnie becomes suspicious about Operation Byron. Fenton says that the team's struggling to justify itself. Who posted the note listing the 3 people? And need the rapist be the same person as the blackmailer?

DNA tests on Noah suggest that his father is one of Zoe Richardson's sons. Colin Fox knew she was being blackmailed about something. Could the rapist still be the blackmailer too, a son blackmailing his mother? Kirsten McCloud was involved with the admin of some other suspects' traffic offences. Maybe she leaked info to the blackmailer?

Dimitri (in her group) discovers a chat-room dialogue involving the rapist. Gemma, also in her group, suspects Dimitri for leaking info.

Owen Richardson is Noah's father. He claims he and Jodie had sex days before the day of the rape. Ronnie sets a trap to make Fox reveal that he's the rapist. Ronnie gets Tess (a team member) to trick Gemma into revealing that she was the blackmailer. At the end loose ends are tidied up.

I think the plot works. Ronnie, Noah and Alex seem surprisingly free of grief given Jodie's recent death.

Other reviews

• promotingcrime (The various strands are teased out in unexpected ways and the twists and turns make it difficult to spot the criminals. The story is a gripping read with some dark parts, but short chapters keep the pace going and encourage the reader to read just a bit more.)