Verdict Unsafe
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
"He'd waited for her outside her flat that night, but Lloyd had come home with her, and he'd had to let it go. But he'd get her. One day. He'd get her."
Four young women. Four horrific rapes. Committed by a man who called himself the 'Stealth Bomber'.
Colin Arthur Drummond - a privileged young man from Malworth - now stands accused of these crimes. And, watching his trial from the public gallery, Detective Inspector Judy Hill cannot forget his chilling description of a fifth unreported rape.
Or his threat that she was to be his sixth.
In court Drummond denies all charges, his lawyer 'Hotshot' Harper claiming police corruption and brutality. But the prosecution has an open-and-shut case; he had been caught in the act by two independent witnesses, and they have a DNA profile which proves he is the rapist. What could go wrong?
Something does. For sixteen months later, Colin Drummond is threatening Judy again. And as Judy sets out to prove his guilt for the second time - and save her own job - Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd is called to a horrifying scene.
It appears Colin Drummond has picked his next victim . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a brooding English procedural, Detective Inspector Judy Hill (A Shred of Evidence, 1996) fights personal and professional battles with a sexual predator. Colin Drummond has beaten the rap on several rape charges. His confession to Hill was disallowed at trial and, although convicted with DNA evidence, he went free when an appeals court found insufficient corroboration, plus misconduct by two policemen. Now Drummond is following Hill and hinting that she could be his next target. He also shadows previous victims, including Ginny Fredericks, a young prostitute who often entertains Rob Jarvis, who hasn't been able to make love to his wife since her grim encounter with the rapist. Meanwhile, an investigation of Drummond's original arrest casts suspicion on Hill, who has only DCI Lloyd, her lover as well as her boss, to defend her integrity. The story begins slowly and sometimes mires itself in pitiful details of the rape victims' lives. But McGown turns the tables with two midpoint surprises that suddenly make many of the players more important than they had appeared, while dramatically upping the stakes for Hill. The pace is methodical and the cast cheerless, but McGown wraps her grim tale in a complex, satisfying solution.
