All My Enemies by Barry Maitland

Publisher's Synopsis

Just before Kolla is to start her new job, a young woman is found viciously murdered in a leafy, well-heeled suburb, and the grotesque details of the slaughter appear to be well-rehearsed, even theatrical. Assigned to the case, Kolla's only improbable lead draws her to a local amateur drama group. Once in their orbit, she is lured into a piece of theatre over which, increasingly, she has little control.

In All My Enemies , Brock and Kolla find themselves in a tangled web of deceptions in a case wherein a corpus of plays becomes a template for murder. 

My Review of All My Enemies by Barry Maitland

All My Enemies is the third book in the police procedural series featuring DS Kathy Kolla and DCI David Brock or Scotland Yard. The series is proving to be an intriguing one, mainly because the limelight is given to the lower ranking officer out of the two whose names the series is named after.

Kathy Kolla has worked with David Brock twice before, once officially (The Marx Sisters) and once unofficially (The Malcontenta) and each time she has impressed him with her virtually infallible intuition. He has now recruited her as part of his Serious Crimes Unit team at New Scotland Yard, a murder squad used to working high profile, high pressure cases.

She hasn't even started with the squad when she is called to attend her first murder scene, that of a young woman who has been viciously stabbed to death in her own home. The woman was a quiet, gentle woman who regularly attended church, had a steady boyfriend and lived with her parents. In short she was a very unlikely candidate for the kind of murder that she suffered.

Kathy finds herself on a steep learning curve with this case but proves that she's more than capable to handle the job. Through a series of insightful observations and small but crucial links with older cases the investigation gradually begins to gather momentum. As it does we find ourselves being drawn into the quirky little world of an amateur drama production.

I found this to be a steadily paced book as we are logically led through possible murder suspects, taken down a blind alley or two before hitting on some solid leads. All of this is pretty standard for your average police procedural and Barry Maitland continues to keep this straightforward investigative work interesting. A nice little sidelight to the story is added by the inclusion of Kathy's aunt who unexpectedly shows up on her doorstep before moving in. Her arrival prompts more of Kathy's personal life to be revealed giving us the opportunity to see her outside of her professional detective role.

A more amusing tone is developed when we are thrust into the rehearsals of the local theatre company that Kathy keeps finding herself drawn to, even to the point where she is recruited as a line prompter. The tantrums, petty squabbles and upstaging that take place on a regular basis are forthright enough to be coming from actors of a major production, not a small amateur group. But what starts out as a frivolous side to the story proves to have quite a lot of significance when it comes to solving the murder investigation, as one would expect given the prominence the developing play is given in the story.

An aspect of the series that has always been enjoyable for me and is reinforced in All My Enemies is the relationship between Kolla and Brock. DCI Brock is very much a background player, enigmatic yet in total control of his unit and the investigation. He displays complete faith in Kolla's intuitions and gut feelings, preferring to give her free rein to take whatever action she sees fit. Not only does the investigation benefit but we as readers benefit, getting a more lively story that isn't encumbered by office politics that can sometimes bog a police procedural mystery down.

One of the joys of reading police procedurals, particularly good police procedurals, is the accumulation of clues that bring the investigation together to give it a steady flow. Through Kathy Kolla, these clues and leads are piled up in an orderly fashion with logical progressions ensuring that the leaps in theory don't appear contrived. As a result we are given an honest chance of coming up with who we might think the murderer might be before it is revealed without the answer either appearing too obvious. There's nothing more satisfying than solving the mystery moments before the protagonist reveals the shocking truth and you get that chance in All My Enemies.

Readers who enjoy well-constructed police procedural mysteries with a logical progression through the investigation will enjoy this book. Equally there are plenty of amusing side stories to provide light entertainment during the investigation's "down time". All My Enemies is representative of the series so far so you can be assured that should you have read and enjoyed the earlier books, you will enjoy this one too. I've also found that one doesn't really have to be familiar with the earlier books from the series to enjoy the later ones, although the characters reappear from book to book, no prior knowledge of their history with one another is required so each book can be enjoyed as a stand-alone.