The files nobody wanted to reopen are often the ones that matter most. Rebus, technically retired, follows a pattern of disappearances along the A9 that a decade of police work somehow missed. Bosch works backward from the bones of a murdered child, found in the Hollywood Hills, thirty years in the ground. An elderly woman who spent her life consulting for crime writers is found dead in her flat. The deaths that follow suggest someone took her expertise a little too seriously. And a journalist whose error cost a woman her life finds a voicemail on a dead man's phone, sent by someone missing for six years. This is the very best of cold case reading.
Ian Rankin, Standing in Another Man's Grave - Nina Hazlitt has been asking about her daughter for a decade. Rebus is the first person to listen.
Michael Connelly, City of Bones - One skeleton, a shallow grave in the hills, decades of silence. Bosch makes it matter.
Elly Griffiths, The Postscript Murders - Three crime writers die in quick succession and Griffiths' detective finds herself in a story nobody chose to be in.
Paul Finch, Never Seen Again - Kelman has lived with his mistake for six years. Jodie's voicemail gives him one chance to make it right.
