Crying Out Loud

The vicissitudes of child care complicate a criminal investigation in Staincliffe’s solid eighth mystery featuring Manchester PI Sal Kilkenny (after 2007’s Missing). When someone leaves a baby girl in a stroller on Sal’s doorstep with a note asking her to tend to the infant and not call the police, Sal takes the child in, much to the dismay of Ray, her housemate recently turned lover; Ray’s young son, Tom; and Sal’s eight-year-old daughter, Maddie. Meanwhile, Sal must re-examine a murder case after petty crook Damien Beswick, who confessed to killing the lover of one of Sal’s clients, recants in prison. While the baby drama could easily have veered this installment toward the maudlin, Staincliffe’s steady pacing, her painfully human and flawed characters, and her lush descriptions of the English countryside in autumn keep the pages turning. Genre fans will smile when Sal turns for consolation to a Kate Atkinson novel. (Mar.)