Reflections of Deviance

by A.J. Cross

Overview

Rich. Successful. Dead . . . The mysterious death of Marion Cane leads criminologist Will Traynor into a deeply challenging and disturbing new case.

Marion Cane swapped a successful city career in New York and London for a quiet retirement in a wealthy village on the outskirts of Birmingham. So why was she found dead in her new home two years later?

Marion's death was thought to be due to natural causes, until an anonymous note leads Superintendent John Heritage of West Midlands Police to ask DCI Bernard Watts and PC Chloe Judd to make enquiries. But when they arrive in Newton Heights, one of the villagers mysteriously vanishes. Still reeling from his own devastating news, criminologist Will Traynor is brought in to assist the team with an increasingly complex and disturbing investigation. Can Traynor push his own demons aside to see through distorted versions of reality, dangerous secrets and dark lies in his pursuit of the truth?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448308002
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	02/07/2023
Series:	A Will Traynor forensic mystery , #4
Edition description:	Main
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.79(w) x 8.74(h) x (d)

About the Author

A.J. Cross is a forensic psychologist with over twenty years' experience in the field. She lives in Birmingham with her jazz-musician husband. As well as the Will Traynor series, she is the author of five Kate Hanson Cold Case mysteries.

Editorial Reviews

01/09/2023

After high-powered financial jobs in New York and London, wealthy Marion Cane retires to Newton Heights, a posh village outside Birmingham, England, in Cross’s plodding fourth mystery featuring criminologist Will Traynor (after 2022’s A Dark, Divided Self). Two years later, Cane, a fit 59-year-old, dies alone in her house, apparently of heart disease. Six months after that, the police receive an anonymous note suggesting they reexamine her death. Det. Chief Insp. Bernard Watts and Police Constable Chloe Judd ask Traynor to consult on the Cane case as well as that of a missing 92-year-old man from Newton Heights. Traynor agrees to help, despite having just learned that the remains of his long-missing wife have been located near Oxford. In Newton Heights, as Watts, Judd, and Traynor interview villagers about both cases, it becomes clear they must find a killer before the killer can strike again. Traynor’s affecting psychological struggles make up only in part for an overly familiar plot that winds its way through a lengthy series of forward and backward investigative steps. This one’s for established fans only. Agent: Jade Kavanagh, Darley Anderson Literary (U.K.). (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

2023-01-12
A criminologist faces down his own trauma as he helps police solve a months-old murder.

DCI Bernard Watts is skeptical when his new boss asks him to look into the death of Marion Cane, a successful businesswoman who retired to the Midlands several years back and lived quietly until she died of heart failure at age 59. It doesn’t make sense that six months after Marion’s passing, an anonymous tipster would send a letter to the West Midlands Police suggesting that they look into what her physician certified as a death by natural causes. As Watts follows Superintendent John Heritage’s order, however, he finds that nothing about the Cane case makes sense. Descriptions of the late Marion Cane are all over the place. Her record in business casts her as strong and self-possessed. Colleagues describe her as kind and caring. Her sister thinks she’s selfish and hypersexual. And her doctor describes her as anxious and frightened. As his investigative team struggles to reconcile these pictures of the deceased, Watts is more pleased than not when his boss brings in Will Traynor, a criminology professor skilled in profiling both victims and criminals. Traynor is ambivalent about the assignment since he’s just learned that the body of his wife, Claire, who disappeared years ago, has finally been found. But he plunges forward, hoping that work will provide a welcome distraction from grief. As he builds a clearer picture of a sometimes steady, sometimes rocky victim, his own functioning becomes more fragile. In the end, he must race to put together all the pieces before he falls apart himself.

Cross builds tension while keeping a diverse cast of characters sharp and sympathetic.

Kirkus Reviews

Plenty of unexpected twists sure to set pulses racing, leading to a shock ending guaranteed to blindside even the most experienced thriller reader

Divided Self Booklist Starred Review of A Dark

As usual, Cross offers a suspense-filled police procedural with engaging but flawed lead characters and well-researched insights into modern policing

Booklist

A skillfully written police drama with plenty of twists

Booklist on Dark Truths

Readers will find themselves warming to Watts, Traynor, and Judd in this clever and absorbing roller-coaster ride of a procedural, and the authentic-seeming depiction of modern policing, along with a devastating conclusion, makes it a gripping and entertaining read for fans of British procedurals

Booklist on Devil in the Detail