cover image Shadowplay

Shadowplay

Karen Campbell. Hodder & Stoughton (IPG, dist.), $12.95 trade paper (480p) ISBN 978-1-4447-0044-2

Romance fans with a taste for crime will best appreciate Campbell’s third Glasgow police procedural (after 2009’s After the Fire). Recently promoted to chief inspector, Anna Cameron has the misfortune of falling under the command of Marion Hamilton, who more than justifies her reputation as a capricious and unfair boss. When Anna needs to take time to tend to her mother, who’s lapsed into a coma while traveling overseas, the tyrannical Hamilton is less than sympathetic. In consolation, single, lonely Anna meets a hunky head doctor while searching for a missing nursing home resident. To her (and the reader’s) embarrassment, Anna later gets wasted at a restaurant opening and otherwise makes a fool of herself. Those expecting Ian Rankin–style grit should be prepared for overripe prose like: “It was a look that said she was beautiful. She shivered in the intense, bright flush of the restaurant.” (Dec.)