The Marx Sisters by Barry Maitland

Publisher's Synopsis

Detective Kathy Kolla's first case is one for the books. Meredith Winterbottom - a resident of Jerusalem Lane, a quaint section of London inhabited by Eastern European immigrants, and a great-granddaughter of Karl Marx - is found dead. 

When a second Marx sister is killed, David Brock, chief inspector of Scotland Yard, is brought in to help. As Kathy and Brock delve into the Lane's eccentric melting pot, they find unpublished letters from Marx to Engels; a possible fourth volume of Das Kapital; an endless list of shady suspects; and a plot to end Kathy's investigation for good. 

Can they unravel the mystery before Kathy's first case is her last?

My Review of The Marx Sisters by Barry Maitland

The Marx Sisters is the debut novel of Barry Maitland, a police procedural mystery that is set in London and introduces Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla and Detective Chief Inspector David Brock.

An old woman is found dead in her bed with a cursory examination suggesting that she has been suffocated which prompts a post-mortem examination. Why would someone murder a harmless old woman? Ok, she was a bit of a busybody and some people could find her loud nature abrasive but surely that's no reason to top the old dear.

The case is Detective Kathy Kolla's to investigate but she is a little perturbed to find Detective Chief Inspector David Brock of Scotland Yard's Serious Crimes Branch has been called in to assist. Brock is widely admired as being an excellent detective, having solved some very high profile cases but Kolla can't work out why he would be assigned to such a low profile case such as this.

The thought processes of Scotland Yard's powers that be aside, Kolla and Brock begin their investigation in the apartment of Meredith Winterbottom, the aforementioned dead woman. She lived with her two sisters, Eleanor and Peg and the three of them are part of a small, rather isolated and insular London neighbourhood referred to as Jerusalem Lane. The neighbourhood is made up of an aging population, mainly refugees from Central Europe and at first glance it looks as though the residents all get on well together.
At first glance...

But an interesting fact about these people is unearthed in the course of the investigation. Almost to a person they are selling up their businesses and houses and leaving the neighbourhood. A developer is buying out Jerusalem Lane with plans of building a huge new business complex on the site. The only people who have refused to sell are Meredith, Eleanor and Peg.

Jerusalem Lane provides a number of suspects, both likely and unlikely, as does the stubborn immovability of the sisters in the face of the developers who want to buy their house. Speaking of the sisters, as the name of the book suggests, they are great-granddaughters of Karl Marx, the letters and inscribed books they have inherited could also be reason enough to motivate someone to murder.

DS Kolla and DCI Brock move steadily through the case rarely wavering into possible distractions of personal lives. While this keeps the story moving nicely it also means we learn very little about the two main characters. In fact, David Brock remains just as enigmatic at the end of the book as he was when he was first introduced, the longest description of the man came as the rumours that Kathy Kolla had heard about him.

The rapport between Kolla and Brock is one of the more appealing aspects of the book. They combine nicely as a team together to ensure that the investigation runs smoothly. The determined and driven Kolla pushes forward as hard as she can at every opportunity while the laid back experience of Brock throttles back the investigation at just the right time. It's a combination that I thought worked very well.

One aspect of many police procedurals that often drives me crazy but is thankfully missing in The Marx Sisters is any suggestion of police bureaucracy or political game-playing by the senior officers. The focus is always on the investigation which I found particularly refreshing and enabled the momentum of the story to be maintained throughout.

Far from being a single-dimensioned murder mystery, The Marx Sisters is a complex story with layer upon layer of unexpected twists told in an engaging style. Barry Maitland has started the Kathy Kolla and David Brock series with an outstanding story.