Unlucky for Some (Lloyd & Hill) (Hardcover)

Detective Chief Inspectors Lloyd and Hill, partners in marriage as well as crime detection, are back for another case. Dragged deep into the turmoil of Bartonshire police, compelled to form a tactical team, they battle to find a serial killer before he strikes again. It started so simply, a bingo winner and an apparent mugging gone wrong. Then it all spirals out of control. Someone is killing at random. Worse still, advertising their crime in advance by letters to the media. Lack of leads frustrates Lloyd and Hill. And watching over their shoulders is Tony Baker, journalist, media personality, witness to the first crime, and now resurrecting his former glory as an authority on serial killers by investigating the case himself. Who can Lloyd and Hill trust? Every angle they check leads up a blind alley, whilst the killer plans his next move. McGown smoothly steps up the pace as the leads evaporate. (Kirkus UK)

A bingo winner's fatal mugging is only the first act in a splendidly overstuffed tale of serial killing. Michael Waterman bestrides Bartonshire like a colossus. His gambling clubs dot the landscape, and his friendship with Chief Supt. Raymond Yardley, his brother-in-law, keeps him abreast of any development that might threaten his empire. But not all of Waterman's power can keep his son Ben from falling for Stephen Halliday, a steward at the Bull's Eye bingo club, or keep Waterman's own name out of the newspapers when Tony Baker finds the body of old Wilma Fenton, whose killer took off before pocketing her winnings. Baker, a true-crime writer who's already run circles around the coppers trying to catch an earlier serial killer, wastes no time in putting his name in the headlines again. Soon he's getting anonymous letters from somebody who cackles about murders yet to come-murders alarmingly close to Waterman Entertainment's outposts in Stansfield and Barton-that DCI Judy Hill, her husband DCI Lloyd, and their serious crime squad are helpless to prevent. Veterans Hill and Lloyd (Death in the Family, 2003, etc.) consider the case from every possible angle, analyzing forensics and alibis, sifting motives and criminal histories, and consulting a psychological profiler. Yet it's not till the last act that the outlines of McGown's architecture finally become clear. The wide-ranging intelligence and exhaustive detail are stellar examples of what other police procedurals want to be when they grow up. (Kirkus Reviews)

February 13th: what seemed like Wilma Fenton's lucky night, when she scooped her biggest-ever win at bingo, turned out to be the night she died at the hands of someone lurking in the dimly-lit alleyway leading to her flat.