Weaving Shadows by
Margaret Murphy
pbk out August 03
(NEL)
at £6.99
Clara Pascal is recovering slowly from the horrendous ordeal of her kidnap (in Darkness
Falls), but she is vulnerable and very bristly, and her husband and young daughter walk on
eggshells around her. This is the first time that Margaret Murphy has written a sequel to
any of her novels, and there are certainly plenty of unresolved issues for Clara in both her
personal life and her profession. She is extremely reluctant to resume her criminal practice
and this in turn causes financial worries.
Her first criminal case is a most unlikely one. A woman is found murdered, brutally
attacked with a hammer, and for the police the case soon seems open and shut. Ian Clemence,
recently released from a 13-year prison term for the hammer murder of his girlfriend, is
shown to have clear links with the murdered woman: and for DS Phil Barton, whose first
murder case that one had been, there is just no point in looking any further. Clemence is a
talented photographer, his skill learned while he was in prison from tutor Amy Dennis – the
murdered woman. Clemence claims that he never actually met her, but when some
photographs of her are found concealed in his flat and it seems that he has been stalking
her, the outlook is certainly not good for him. Amy Dennis had a baby, whose father Chris
Tobin and his wife Diane wish to adopt ; Clara Pascal is asked to take their case but is
at first simply told that it is an adoption case and only finds out later of the connection with
the murder. After some very hard thinking on her part, however, and having relinquished
their case, she takes on that of Clemence.
As the police (Barton and his colleagues) continue their investigations it becomes apparent
that there is another dimension to the whole case. Businessman Sebastian Enderby has
been shot and lies critically ill in hospital, and among the photographs taken by Amy
Dennis are some of Enderby and his business associates. Moreover, the notes found in
her computer files reveal that she was conducting her own investigation of a particular
building project. So perhaps this was not a straightforward case of sexual obsession on
the part of Clemence after all?
This is a gripping novel with many ingenious twists and turns of plotting and relationships.
The police are an acceptable mix of likeable & objectionable, some flawed, some
admirable, most sympathetic. And remarkably, although the vicious and thoroughly
obnoxious Clemence never really mellows, we are led to feel some sympathy for his
predicament.
Weaving Shadows by
Margaret Murphy
