Deadlock: A Brock and Poole Mystery

Ison’s enjoyable 16th police procedural set in London (after 2016’s Suddenly at Home) sends curmudgeonly Det. Chief Insp. Harry Brock, of the Homicide and Major Crime Command, and his cheeky colleague, Sgt. Dave Poole, to a crime scene in Richmond Park, where a woman—identified as 25-year-old Rachel Steele from the driver’s license in her cash-filled wallet—has been strangled. The killer took only the victim’s bra. This presents the “disturbing possibility” that the police “could be looking for a trophy-hunting homicidal maniac.” Similar murders follow. Early on, Brock proudly confesses: “I only dealt in paper; computers, clever telephones and other related toys were another world as far as I was concerned, one I did not wish to explore.” Fortunately, he’s supported by a squad of bright, often amusing, young coppers who check alibis, set up stake-outs, and handle 21st-century appliances. No one, though, thinks to check the city’s ubiquitous CCTV cameras. Ison is sure to please older readers with a taste for the quaint. (Sept.)