MARIANNE WHEELAGHAN'S THE SHOESHINE KILLER – REVIEW
This is the second adventure in local author Marianne Wheelaghan’s Scottish Lady Detective series, writes Caroline Roussot.
Wheelaghan (right) this time transports us to Fiji, where her heroine DS Louisa Townsend is due to attend a police conference on money-laundering.
Unfortunately, Townsend’s participation in the conference is jeopardised by the brutal double-murder of the guest-house owners whose property she is staying at, and the discovery that one of the bodies has been hidden in her suitcase!
Townsend soon finds herself a suspect in the murder investigation, although luckily her police status means that rather than being arrested she is simply placed under the surveillance of a young Fijian female police officer called Makareta.
Louisa has to battle her OCD, the sweaty climate, the dramas going on in her personal life, and the ingrained conservatism of the police force and locals. Despite her dual heritage (a Scottish father, and a mother from a neighbouring South Sea island), Fiji is very much a foreign land to Townsend, and the exotic location and different cultural expectations are vividly conjured for the reader.
The cast of secondary characters in the story are less developed, as the star of this show is very much the feisty and straight-talking detective. No Nancy Drew, Louisa Townsend is a heroine for our times – brittle, flawed, prone to impulsive outbursts she later regrets, but open-hearted and with a strong sense of justice. The more the reader identifies with this complex and infuriating character, the greater will be his or her enjoyment of the series.
Marianne Wheelaghan's The Shoeshine Killer (302 pages, Pilrig Press) is available in paperback and for Kindle, ISBN: 0992723434 ISBN-13: 978-0992723439