cover image Picture Her Dead

Picture Her Dead

Lin Anderson. Hodder & Stoughton (IPG, dist.), $29.95 (448p) ISBN 978-0-340-99292-0

In Anderson’s middling eighth contemporary crime novel starring Glaswegian forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod (after 2010’s The Reborn), photographic student Jude Evans, a friend of Rhona’s grown son, Liam Hope, whom Rhona gave up for adoption at birth, vanishes while exploring an abandoned movie theater, where a noxious smell that Jude detects in the usherettes’ room suggests foul play. When the police don’t take Liam’s concerns seriously because Jude is an adult, Liam turns for help, with some misgivings, to his mother. Had the book narrowly focused on this story line and the frantic search for Jude’s whereabouts, it probably would have been more gripping, but suspense is vitiated by an unrelated plot involving a police officer witness against some thugs widely believed to have been dead. Those expecting forensic sleuthing at the level of a Kathy Reichs will be disappointed. (Jan.)