First Line: "Why didn't you go when I told you, before we left the house?"Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen is persona non grata at the police station after an inexplicable act of cowardice. When the body of a young woman is found just steps away from the Beatles' Abbey Road recording studio, Breen knows this is his last chance to prove he's up to the job.
But the troubled Breen has been saddled with a rookie constable named Helen Tozer. She couldn't represent the changes sweeping the nation more if she tried, dedicated George Harrison fan that she is.
Are the two going to be able to work together to solve this crime?
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William Shaw's first Breen & Tozer mystery, She's Leaving Home is a perfect snapshot of an era. It's 1968. Beatlemania is strong in England, and the young and free and beautiful seem to be in charge. Although he's not that old, Cathal Breen grew "up in an England of cautious floral prints," an England in which he was expected to turn into his parents and to accept his place in the world. He'd moved his ailing father into his home and had taken care of him until his death, and he wasn't showing any signs of fighting against what had been expected of him. No indeed. Breen has carefully avoided all the changes sweeping the country.
But Helen Tozer, fresh from the country and enjoying city life, isn't going to let him avoid those changes forever. She definitely represents The New, and although she takes a misstep or two, she's got more than enough gumption to put up with all the males who think it's ridiculous to have female police officers. That is a very good thing, too, because she even has to put up with nonsense from the secretary.
Shaw had me learning things about England in the swinging sixties. The attitudes, the casual racism, the Beatles, lardy cakes... I could really picture myself in London with Breen and Tozer. The mystery is very good, and if I had any little quibble it was the fact that I got to know more about Breen than I did Tozer, and I found Tozer to be every bit as fascinating as the closed-off Breen. But that's what a series is for: each book develops the characters even more while involving readers in new mysteries.
It's good to know that I have this series by Shaw to read while I wait for new Alex Cupidi mysteries. He's one very fine writer, and you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't at least sample one of his books.
She's Leaving Home by William Shaw
ISBN: 9780316246842
Mulholland Books © 2014
Hardcover, 432 pages
Police Procedural, #1 Breen & Tozer
Rating: B+
Source: Paperback Swap
