A Dark and Twisted Tide: A Novel

by Sharon Bolton, S. J. Bolton

Overview

Lacey Flint, Sharon Bolton's enigmatic protagonist, has been living in a houseboat on the River Thames, and she's becoming a part of London's weird and wonderful riverboat community. Against her friends' better judgment, she's taken up swimming in the Thames, and she feels closer than ever to Detective Mark Joesbury, despite his involvement in a complicated undercover case. For the first time in her life, as she recovers from the trauma of the last few months, Lacey begins to feel almost happy.

Then, at dawn one hot summer morning while swimming down the river, Lacey finds the body of a shrouded young woman in the water. She assumes it was chance—after all, she's recently joined the marine policing unit, and she knows how many dead bodies are pulled out of the river every year, most the result of tragic accidents. But further investigation leads her policing team to suspect the woman's body was deliberately left for Lacey to find. Lacey's no longer a homicide detective, but as she begins to notice someone keeping a strangely close eye on her, she's inexorably drawn into the investigation.

Award-winning author Sharon Bolton has once again crafted a tightly plotted, utterly unpredictable thriller around one of the most compelling characters in crime fiction today, intensely private London police officer Lacey Flint, whose penchant for keeping secrets is only matched by her determination to uncover those of others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250060495
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/03/2015
Series:	Lacey Flint Novels , #4
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

SHARON BOLTON is a Mary Higgins Clark Award winner and an ITW Thriller Award, CWA Gold Dagger and Barry Award nominee. She lives near London, England. Sharon Bolton was previously published as S.J. Bolton.

Editorial Reviews

The pleasures of first-rate mystery usually lie in the plot, and Bolton has constructed a solid nail-biter. But it's the characters that infuse A Dark and Twisted Tide with such heart—not just the gritty, damaged Flint but her friends and colleagues, too.” —Entertainment Weekly

“[Bolton] delights in a kind of gothic horror, weaving suspenseful tales featuring complex, often tormented characters…Just as readers think they know the killer's identity, there is another shocking twist in this…always gripping tale by a master of the genre.” —Library Journal

“[Bolton's] worldbuilding is fascinating. Lacey is a wonderful protagonist, stubborn, lost and striving to connect.” —RT Book Reviews (4 stars)

From the Publisher

04/28/2014
Someone is snuffing the life out of young women, then shrouding their weighted bodies before tossing them into the Thames, in Bolton’s haunting fourth novel featuring London police officer Lacey Flint (after 2013’s Lost). Though the former detective constable has recently transferred to the Marine Unit in hopes of putting a string of disturbing cases behind her, she’s ordered to work on the investigation, since the inquiry was launched by her discovery of one of the victims while she was swimming in the river near her houseboat. Despite considerable personal turmoil—including having her lover, Det. Insp. Mark Joesbury, disappear on an undercover job—it’s not long before she’s immersing herself in the increasingly dangerous hunt for a possible serial killer targeting illegal Afghan immigrants. Bolton sweeps the reader along with Lacey until finally running aground after a few twists too many. Agent: Anne-Marie Doulton, Ampersand Agency (U.K.). (June)

Publishers Weekly

2014-04-14
A cop recovering from a near drowning discovers the first of several bodies in a mystery set near, along and in the Thames.Constable Lacey Flint of the Metropolitan Police's Marine Unit, who lives in a houseboat, knows the river well enough to negotiate its tides and currents as a wild-swimmer. When she finds a shrouded, skeletal body tied to the landing stage by the old Kings Wharf, she has to report it even though the report puts her on the spot for questionable swimming practices. DI Dana Tulloch, who supervises the case, was Lacey's boss when Lacey was still a detective herself, before a string of three bad cases changed her life and made her return to uniform. When the evidence suggests the drowning victim was a young woman, possibly of Middle Eastern extraction, Lacey goes undercover to try to flush out the sex traffickers she suspects are responsible. Lacey is used to a false identity; for reasons that aren't made entirely clear, she's had one for years, and she's willing to take chances to save lives. She has the example, too, of her quasi-boyfriend, Mark Joesbury, a full-time undercover cop who makes a couple of secret visits to Lacey's houseboat. But she's increasingly suspicious that someone besides Joe is visiting her boat and leaving threatening messages. Lacey's attempt to rescue one of the victims, her friendship with a set of elderly twins, infestations of Chinese crabs and the knowledge of obstetrics Dana gleaned from her attempts to get pregnant all come together in the tense, horror-filled, over-the-top sequence that ends Lacey's fourth case.The aquatic maverick heroine is pulled from water so many times that Bolton (Like This, For Ever, 2013, etc.) has to keep upping the ante. Nevertheless, Lacey's a brave and resourceful protagonist who earns her boss's and readers' respect.

Kirkus Reviews