Old Bones: A Bill Slider Mystery

Harrod-Eagles’s outstanding 19th outing for Det. Insp. Bill Slider and his team of London coppers (after 2016’s One Under) opens with Slider under suspicion of having leaked information to the press about a case involving his superiors in the department. He’s therefore assigned a cold case to keep him, as his boss says, “out of everyone’s hair. You can’t upset anybody looking into old bones.” The bones in question were found in the back garden of a London house and belong to a teenage girl; the medical examiner estimates she has been buried there for around 25 years. What was intended as mere busywork becomes, in the hands of diligent and determined Slider (who balances his idealism with an intimate understanding of the unfairness of life), much more complex and controversial. This admirable entry features a well-integrated cast of both sexes and is refreshingly free of innuendo about female police officers. Harrod-Eagles graces her narrative with a quiet wit that makes the book a pleasure to read. (Feb.)