The Hireling's Tale

When a young woman is found dead at the bottom of a boat in the Castlemere Canal, completely naked, and full of crack cocaine, the inhabitants of the dockside town are shocked. How could such a thing happen in Castlemere? The town's trio of police, detectives Frank Shapiro, Liz Graham and Cal Donovan, are concerned with answering a more basic set of questions: Who is this woman? How did she get on that boat? Why? The detectives quickly determine that she was thrown off the roof of a local hotel -- where an international business convention was being held, complicating the list of suspects. Suddenly, the deaths of a sheep from a local farm and of a homeless man throw the case off course -- someone in Castlemere is using live objects for target practice. Shapiro finds out firsthand that there is a professional killer on the loose, leaving Graham and Donovan to try and piece this puzzling case together alone. When a panicky phone call from a friend of the dead woman offers to shed light on these bizarre events Liz sends Donovan to fetch her. It should take only a few hours, but even that may be too long... From Publishers WeeklyBannister deftly examines the dedication and determination of three types of hirelings--a prostitute, an assassin and a British police officer--in this eighth, expertly crafted entry in her Castlemere, England, series (Broken Lines, Forecasts, Feb. 22, etc.) . When a prostitute falls from the roof of a hotel, the police aren't sure whether it's accident, suicide or murder. But when they see her brutally beaten body and learn of the incredible amount of heroin in her system, they realize they have a savage murderer on the loose. Since an international business conference was taking place in the hotel at the probable time of the woman's death, Detective Superintendent Shapiro hones in on the conference's organizer, Philip Kendall, for information. The DS fears that the killer will hire an assassin to stop those who know his identity, and, indeed, someone shoots at Kendall. Then Shapiro is seriously wounded protecting the man from a second shot. Since Kendall protests that he knows nothing about the woman's murder and can't understand why anyone would want to kill him, the investigation seems to be at a standstill--until the dead woman's friend, who has been in hiding, phones to say she was with the victim while she was being beaten. Quirky Detective Sergeant Donovan is sent to pick up prostitute Maddie Cotterick so that she can identify her friend's killer. But they, too, are followed by the persistent assassin. Will Donovan be able to deliver Cotterick into the hands of his superiors, or will the assassin prove to be an inescapable instrument of destruction? Bannister pours on the tension as the ill-equipped Castlemere police force battle for justice in what seems to be a no-win situation. (Dec.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalCastlemere (England) detectives Shapiro, Graham, and Donovan face a tough case: a murdered prostitute with ties to a local international business convention. A character-based police procedural from an expert. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.