The Hanging Wood

Starred review from March 1, 2011

When 14-year-old Callum Hinds goes missing in England's Lake District, everyone suspects his uncle, who, unable to stand the pressure, commits suicide. Twenty years later Callum's sister raises doubts about her uncle's guilt, but no one listens. Then she falls into a grain silo and suffocates. DCI Hanna Scarlett, head of Cumbria's Cold Case Review Team, begins an investigation that leads to more deaths and an unexpected ending. Edwards's fifth series title (after The Serpent Pool) builds suspense while capturing its characters' rage, anguish, and resentment that complicate the investigation and intensify the danger for all involved. VERDICT With an unforgettable ending, this outstanding cold case will attract Lynda La Plante and Mo Hayder fans.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 7, 2011
At the start of Edwards's lackluster fifth Lake District police procedural (after 2010's The Serpent Pool), Orla Payne, whose brother, Callum Hinds, disappeared 20 years earlier when she was seven, tries unsuccessfully to reach Det. Chief Insp. Hannah Scarlett, leader of the Cumbria cold case unit, by phone. Orla spoke to the inspector the day before, but the call had gone badly. When Orla later suffocates in a grain silo, an apparent suicide, this tragedy leads to the closed case's reopening and to Scarlett, aided by historian Daniel Kind, re-examining the official theory that Callum was murdered by Callum's uncle, who disposed of the corpse before taking his own life. A clue to the truth may lie in Orla's preoccupation with the story of Castor and Pollux. Sections dealing with Scarlett's love life add little to a less than compelling investigation.