Body of Lies
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley September 5, 2024
Author Sarah Bailey
Distributor: Allen and Unwin
ISBN: https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Sarah-Bailey-Body-of-Lies-9781761069178
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Release Date: February 2024
FaceBook:
YouTube:
Instagram:
X Formally Twitter:
In the long awaited fourth book in the Detective Gemma Woodstock series, Woodstock, who is trying her best to be a good mother to her nine month old daughter Scarlett and her son Ben, finds she is co-opted into a Murder investigation almost by default.
She is visiting her father in hospital when there is a loud series of noises and the lights go out, plunging the place into darkness. Police are called and it is her nemesis, Detective Sargent Julian Everett who arrives to investigate the event. As she was there when it happened she is able to give detailed information.
A vehicle accident out of town the night before resulted in the death of a young woman; a woman with no identification, no shoes, bag or wallet whose body was placed in the Hospital Morgue. It has been removed in mysterious circumstance during the blackout!
Body of Lies from Sarah Bailey sees Woodstock back in action, struggling to keep her private and professional lives separate, wondering if her new relationship is as good as it seems, as the wonderful Mac, also a Detective, is busy with his own cases. She is aware he is keeping secrets, but why?
In the first section of the story there is what is now considered as a murder, the body having been being snatched from the Morgue, the really challenging issue of the discovery of a baby being found at the side of the local lake and chaos reigning on a domestic front as Woodstock returns from Maternity Leave, to work the case in a part time capacity.
With all this happening so early in the book, the challenge is to see how Bailey can bring all the many threads that evolve together, to catch a Murderer in a town where the main players, the people of power in the small regional town of Smithson, are perhaps not who or what they purport to be, in this plot line full of twists and often horrifying turns.
Body of Lies is a captivating and enjoyable thriller, possibly the last in the series, resulting in a conclusion of events that absolutely nobody saw coming, in the town of Smithson.