Book Review: Litte Boy Blue by MJ Arlidge

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Read it for a flawed heroine who is tormented by her past and is not allowed a moment of rest and peace- welcome to the world of Detective Inspector Helen Grace. 

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Though I  personally want to read all the firsts of the various detectives that have been created in the world of fiction, MJ Arlidge's Eeny Meeny has not easily fallen into my lap. What instead I found was the fifth book featuring his heroine DI Helen Grace- Little Boy Blue.

This is the book where Helen's professional and personal lives clash giving us some idea about what might have happened in her past. Helen has deep, dark secrets that begin to bubble up to the surface as a man is found murdered in the city's deepest and darkest corner. He was well-known to Grace and it could purely be an accident but then another man is found murdered grotesquely and he too was known to her. As leads and misplaced suspicions come to the fore, the murder investigations get sidetracked by her infighting subordinates, Grace is torn between keeping her secret well hidden and own up knowing the two victims.

During the book that lasts 128 chapters (which are short and make the book extremely readable in my opinion), we find more people from Grace's life walking in and out of the pages of Little Boy Blue. There is a journalist who is a friend turned foe, her boss who is crushing on her secretly and bits from her family's past involving her parents, sister and her son. One gets the picture that Helen had just about started to successfully put distance between herself and her ex life, but these murders pull her back right in. 

Though I would recommend reading this #5 as part of the series, the book does not disappoint as a standalone novel. Also I could not stop thinking about that other fiesta DI from Sweden, Irene Huss, and how contrasting these two fictional characters were. While Irene is the most uncomplicated Detective ever (and not just a female detective)- no lurid past (I know of someone but can't recall just right now...), no personal tragedies (Harry Hole) addictions ( Sherlock Holmes), no accidents marring her life permanently (Cormoran Strike), no conflicts (besides those of being a mother to teenage daughters), Helen Grace seems to have suffered or suffering most of these.

This is maybe one of the greatest joys of reading fiction.


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