City of Dreadful Night

In a botched effort to arrest a violent armed robber, police officers under the command of Chief Constable Robert Watts raid the wrong house and gun down four people at the outset of the strong first in British author Guttridge's Brighton trilogy. Watts publicly defends his officers, but pressure escalates for him to step down. His troubled marriage collapses after the press learns that he had an affair with Det. Sgt. Sarah Gilchrist, one of the members of the assault team. When long-lost papers surface relating to an unsolved 1934 case in which a woman's body parts were found in luggage left at railway stations, Watts ends up assisting a reporter who reopens the case. Despite a major coincidence that connects the two plot lines, Guttridge (Two to Tango) successfully pulls readers in, and many will be eager to pick up the dangling plot threads in the second book. (Dec.)