Review: Stay Buried

Stay Buried by Katherine Webb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Detective Inspector Matt Lockyer is now working cold cases after crossing the line on an arson case involving an old school friend. He gets a call from Hedy Lambert, serving twenty years for murder, hid first murder case in fact. She wants to speak to him urgently, there is new evidence in her case - the assumed victim has turned up very much alive after thirty years.

Fourteen years ago Hedy was housekeeper to Professor Roland Ferres. A young man, originally thought to be Roland's estranged son Harry who had been missing for sixteen years, was murdered in one of the Professor's barns, the same one in which his wife Helen committed suicide. Hedy discovered the body and was covered in blood; the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, only had her fingerprints on it. Matt pursued Hedy's conviction with zeal, it was his chance to prove himself, but he was never 100% convinced that she was the killer, perhaps because he felt an attraction to the young woman.

Now with Hedy's call, Matt is worried that there may have been a miscarriage of justice and requests leave to reopen the case. Back in 2005 with a clear suspect the police did not investigate any other potential killers thoroughly. Also, forensic techniques have improved enormously over fourteen years, they may find new evidence.

As Matt and his DC Gemma Broad investigate they find plenty of other suspects, but who did they want to kill, Harry or the actual victim Mickey Brown? How did Mickey fool his father into thinking he was Harry? Did the killer do it for the Professor's money? Was Mickey killed to cover up something? Can Matt be objective when he still has feelings for Hedy? They also start to uncover other mysteries, like why did Helen kill herself?

I enjoyed this crime novel, it was twisty and there were other personal threads running through it, like SC Broad's relationship, Matt's parents, his elderly neighbour (I suspect her husband was killed in Matt's attic), and Matt's friend Kevin. Matt was a bit angsty, his younger brother was murdered on a pub crawl when he was just eighteen and the killer was never found. His death has profoundly affected Matt and his parents. However, I did guess who killed Mickey (and why), hence not four stars. I am definitely interested in reading the next book in this series.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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