Title: Disappointing, long-awaited sequel
Product review: As a huge fan of Airth's first novel, A River of Darkness, I was severely disappointed with this second John Madden mystery. The author hampers Madden's involvement by having him retire from Scotland Yard to manage a farm in Surrey with his family. His contribution to this mystery, which involves a brutal child killer, is thus marginal at best. He finds one of the first bodies and deals with the killer at the end, but other detectives, associated with Madden in the previous book, do most of the sleuthing. Airth creates a really nasty killer in this outing, and the unveiling of his true identity is a treat. Nevertheless, I wanted more John Madden, and any reader of this book would have to agree that his presence was surely lacking.
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