Reading : Bye Bye Baby by Lauren Crow

I've just finished reading an outstanding debut novel by Lauren Crow titled Bye Bye Baby. It's a moving thriller involving an abused child who comes back 30 years later to begin meting out justice. The justice is a particularly brutal death for the bullying boys who were responsible so many years ago.

Introduced in the story is a young Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector named Jack Hawksworth who heads the investigation into the killings. He is a charismatic man who gets the best out of his team with a sharp analytic mind combined with outstanding people skills.

Crow does an outstanding job of getting inside the head of the killer and even going so far as making us sympathetic to their plight. No, you're not actually cheering for the killer to get away with it but you can also see that there's more than 1 victim in this story.

This is a terrific book for police procedural readers who like books like Peter Robinson's DI Banks books or Barry Maitland's Brock and Kolla books. The characterisation is strong throughout the book and plays a major part in the success of the story along with a good feel for how far to take a plot twist not to mention how much to reveal and when.

I was a little unsure whether to count Crow as an Australian author, after all, she was born and raised in Brighton, England (where parts of Bye Bye Baby is set) and has only recently moved to Adelaide. But then I came across a reference to a person wearing a "daggy tracksuit" and later on Jack is treated to a mug of Milo which sealed the deal for me. Australian author...