Blood Atonement by Dan Waddell

First Line: The candle on the ledge guttered as it neared its end, shadows dancing on the wall.

Still on the mend from the events in The Blood Detective, DCI Grant Foster is supposed to be on light duty. That goes out the window when a single mother is murdered and her fourteen-year-old daughter abducted. When his investigation turns up strikingly similar circumstances in the disappearance of another young teenager three years previously, Foster believes there is a link, and he turns to genealogist Nigel Barnes to piece together the facts and find the connection.

The trail leads Barnes right back to 1890 when a young couple arrived in the UK. This husband and wife were running away from a terrible crime...a crime that is having horrible repercussions in the here and now.

Having enjoyed the first book in this series, I had to get my hands on this second, which also appears to be the last. Blood Atonement acknowledges the elephant in the room: the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and the powerhouse position they have in the world of genealogy. Members may not be happy with Waddell's depiction of their religion since it touches on fundamentalist offshoots that practice polygamy as well as the actions the church has taken to erase (or at least cover up) things that have happened in their past that may not show them in a favorable light. It's this subterfuge that makes Barnes' investigation for the police so difficult.

The solution is convoluted and laced with a heavy dose of irony, but this isn't really what grabbed most of my attention. The still-healing Foster is brought face-to-face with a young boy-- eleven-year-old Gary-- whose life is in danger, and he takes it upon himself to protect him. Gary has been nothing but trouble most of his short life, but it's heart-warming to see how Foster warms up to him-- and how Gary reacts to him. Protecting Gary brings several of Foster's own shortcomings into sharp focus, and the seasoned copper knows he needs to mend his ways.

To be honest, Blood Atonement's mystery had a bit too much religion for my taste, but the characters are what made the book. I like watching how Nigel Barnes sifts through archives to find answers, and DCI Grant Foster is just the sort of homicide detective I like.
  

Blood Atonement by Dan Waddell

ISBN: 9780141025667

Penguin Books © 2009

Paperback, 344 pages

Amateur Sleuth, #2 Nigel Barnes mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Paperback Swap

The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell

First Line: Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster, stiff from lack of sleep, dragged his tall, weary frame from his brand-new Toyota Corolla, feeling the familiar ache of being hauled from his bed in the middle of the night.

The body of a naked, mutilated man has been found in a Notting Hill graveyard, and the only clue is a series of carved letters and numbers on the man's chest. Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster and Detective Superintendent Heather Jenkins don't have a clue what they mean until family historian Nigel Barnes joins their investigation. 

As more bodies turn up and with no clues to be found in the present, it's up to Barnes to search the archives to solve a 100-year-old mystery. Only then will the team be able to catch a murderer and put an end to the killings.

There's a nice little subgenre in crime fiction that's all about genealogy and how crimes committed in the past have a way of causing even more grief in the present. As main character Nigel Barnes says, "Anyone who seeks to forget the past has a corpse in the basement," and that's exactly what's happened in The Blood Detective. A crime was committed in the past and swiftly forgotten by almost everyone. Notice I said "almost."

Waddell has an excellent cast to solve this mystery. Nigel is young, intelligent, and passionate about family history-- well, all history for that matter. He's not without his own skeleton in the closet, and as soon as I knew what it was, I was watching carefully to see how he deals with it. I'll leave that for you to discover for yourselves. His two police colleagues are interesting in their own ways. Heather Jenkins is the likable one of the pair, and although I really didn't care much for Grant Foster (I keep hearing that line from an old commercial, "Who's behind those Foster Grants?"), I certainly appreciated his character being fleshed out more by book's end.

The story in The Blood Detective is a bit like that snowball going downhill, gaining size and momentum till the powerful crash at the end. I enjoyed the journey, possibly because there are no clues to be found in the present. Barnes has to spend a lot of time in newspaper archives and records offices to piece everything together, and watching how he does it is fascinating. History and genealogy really do solve this crime. And Barnes' habit of tossing out name origins as he goes along? Pay attention. (Just a word to the wise. Besides, they're fun.)

I almost added this book to my Best Reads of 2015 list except for one thing, and it's something that doesn't happen to me very often. One scene toward the end was over-the-top with the pain and gore quotient. It had me tied up in a Gordian knot of quivering sympathy pain. I think of it as the "Annie Wilkes on steroids" scene. Be that as it may, I really enjoyed this book. Dan Waddell has joined fellow Englishman Steve Robinson in crafting mysteries steeped in family history that I just don't want to put down. I'm looking forward to meeting Nigel Barnes again-- soon!

The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell

ISBN: 9780312378905

Minotaur Books © 2008

Hardcover, 304 pages

Police Procedural, #1 Nigel Barnes mystery

Rating: A

Source: Paperback Swap