Picture of Innocence

Ms. McGown gets better with each book in the Lloyd/Hill series, so it's hard to say it's the best since I have yet to read her last three. But this book is certainly the best so far! Ms. McGown is an incredible writer! Her books are complex and wickedly intelligent. Her characters get better too. Rachel Bailey is totally wonderful! And pay attention to her titles. They always mean something integral to the story. In this book we have a murder victim that no one wants to see revenged. Bernard Bailey was a monster - to his daughter, his wife and everyone that he dealth with. Who really cares who killed him? Well Lloyd and Hill need to find out and they have more clues and suspects than they know what to do with. Can they put them all together, separate the wheat from the chaff? And if they can, can they then provide the correct evidence to send the killer to prison? Do they want to send the murderer to prison even? Bailey was a grade A cad, and the world will be a better place without him in it. Read this awesome book.

Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd and Detective Superintendent Case are investigating the death of East Midlands farmer Bernard Bailey. The police quickly realize that there are many suspects who had motives and means to murder the abusive landowner. Bailey's wife Rachel was a victim of spousal abuse as he constantly battered her for failing to produce a male heir. Bailey's adult daughter was also a victim of her sire's truculent nature. Than there are those outside the family such as Rachel's lover Curtis Law and a builder Mike McQueen who coveted Bailey's land. As Lloyd and Case struggle with their own relationship, they also find the complex case becoming even more difficult to resolve. The seventh Lloyd and Hill mystery is a wonderful British who-done-it because of the deep psychological insights into all the characters, which in turn provides a plethora of potential culprits. Though Rachel is a bit of adisappointment as a protagonist, Jill McGowan insures that her book exceeds its title (PICTURE OF INNOCENCE) with a complexity rarely seen in a mystery novel, let alone a British cozy. This series is worth reading in its entirety, but this particular novel is either the best or at a minimum within the top three books of the Lloyd and Hill mysteries.Harriet Klausner