Last Lullaby by
Denise Hamilton
pbk out September 05
(Orion)
at £10.99
Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond is shadowing a customs official at LAX
airport when passengers arriving on a flight from Beijing are sprayed with gunfire.
Three people are killed and a toddler is apparently orphaned: her mother shot dead
and her father missing. The child's passport states that she is Japanese but she doesn't
respond to the language. She has also made five transpacific flights in one year. Eve's
interest in the child's story is quickened when the authorities whisk the girl into
hiding. Her investigation, sometimes undercover, takes her to Chinatown and to
sleazy hotels, to trendy eateries and cyber cafés and the world of human rights law.
Hamilton, a reporter herself, is excellent at depicting the world of the modern
journalist – the hustle, the tricks, the pressure. Los Angeles is conveyed well, a city
of extremes, home to myriad cultures. This third novel, engaging and sharply written,
shows Hamilton is here to stay.
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries and the series creator of TV Blue Murder)
