Shattered by Gabrielle Lord

Publisher's Synopsis

Gemma Lincoln has to find the murderer of a police superintendent. But will the Force close around her? Is a cop the killer?

Private Investigator Gemma Lincoln is back. A brother and sister-in-law are shot dead in the hallway of their family home. The dead man, Bryson Finn, was a police superintendent; his bereaved wife, Natalie Sutherland, is a former detective. Was this a case of cop killing cop? Natalie hires Gemma to find out, fearing that the Force will close ranks to keep it quiet. That might not be the smartest thing Ms Sutherland has ever done...

While trying to solve this bloody crime, and the many minor skirmishes that help pay the bills for a PI, Gemma has to make tough decisions about her own life. Is she in love with Steve? Will she tell him about the baby? Can she be a mother on her own?

My Review 

Gabrielle Lord really knows how to grab the reader's attention right from the first page and if the horrifying multiple shooting at the front door of a suburban Sydney home doesn't do it, then Gemma Lincoln's news surely will. The 4th book in the Gemma Lincoln detective series has sent the series into a radically different direction. Shattered opens with a series of telling changes to Gemma's life, none of them by themselves of monumental moment but when piled together are burdensome enough to have her question her choice of lifestyle.

A muffled gasp causes the shooter to swing back around. A small boy is on the stairs behind the fallen bodies, one arm raised in an instinctive, useless gesture. Holy hell! What's he doing here? The child's huge eyes lock into those of the shooter. There is no choice.

The murder in question is that of police Superintendent Bryson Finn and his sister-in-law Bettina at the front door of her house. Also shot and critically wounded is Bryson's 9 year old son Donovan who was only saved by the arrival of his mother soon after the killer left the scene. The case is headed by Detective Sergeant Angie McDonald, but thanks to her close friendship with Gemma, the PI is given unprecedented access to the crime scene and the witnesses.

As compelling as the case appears, though, the main focus of attention is drawn irresistibly towards Gemma's personal dramas and her battles with dealing with them. Work is becoming scarce for her once thriving private investigation agency and she has had to lay off the investigators who were working for her. She has recently found her half-sister, Grace and has split with her long-time boyfriend Steve, an undercover cop. But to top everything off, she is pregnant, suffering from sever bouts of morning sickness and seriously doubts her capacity to raise a child.

In the last few weeks, almost without her noticing, an imaginary balance seemed to tilt towards having the baby or away from it. In this moment, the scales, which had been meaning towards termination, tipped the tiniest distance the other way

It's a decision that will dog her through the entire book. But this isn't the only personal crisis that takes up a good deal of her attention. Also troubling her is the fact that her half-sister Grace, who she has only just found and was preparing to meet for the first time, has been taken in by what looks like a cult. Suddenly, after expressing great excitement over meeting her sisters for the first time, Grace has broken all contact and asked Gemma not to try to see her. Of course, this is a red rag to a bull for Gemma and immediately sets her course for the compound of The Group.

In this book, more so than in the earlier 3, Gemma is keenly dependent on her network of friends to help in her investigations. Although bemoaning the fact that work is scarce, during the course of her part in the murder investigation she also works on 3 other separate missing person cases. In each she enlists the help of brothel owners, social workers, one of her laid-off investigators and even The Pest - the young boy named Hugo who uses her place as a flop whenever he has nowhere else to stay. There is a comforting feeling that with such an extensive support network significant progress is always a possibility.

But there is an unsteadiness to the flow of the story with the urgency of the murder investigation diminished by squeezing it in between Gemma's personal problems. On the one hand there is tremendous insight to be gained into Gemma's personality and she is to be revealed as a complex woman, but the investigation stagnates as a result with much of it reduced to pure conjecture rather than evidence gathering and then hotly contested difference of opinion between Gemma and Angie.

The voice of Gemma Lincoln rings out strongly once again in Shattered, a thriller that makes its mark thanks to the strength of character development. The vague feeling of disconnection with the murder investigation throughout the book is a little disconcerting but this is compensated for by the hectic schedule that Gemma maintains ensuring that a sense of progress is constantly achieved.

Those who have met Gemma Lincoln before will appreciate the new direction she is heading, newcomers to the series will be struck by a well-organised, strongly motivated detective who is not afraid to act on her convictions. Gabrielle Lord has complemented this series nicely with Shattered ensuring that it's a second series in which I find myself waiting for the next book impatiently.