The Solstice by Matt Brolly

Published by Thomas & Mercer on September 17, 2024

Some law enforcement agencies devote more energy to jurisdictional squabbles than to solving crimes. A squabble about whether a murder investigation should take precedence over the years-long financial crimes investigation of a cult is the only interesting aspect of The Solstice.

This is the seventh entry in a series that features Detective Inspector Louise Blackwell. Like all good fictional cops, she has a checkered work history, but she’s being considered for promotion to Detective Chief Inspector. The job might be a good alternative to quitting, an option that seems tempting as she returns to work from her maternity leave.

On her first day back, Louise is assigned to investigate the discovery of a child’s bones in a cave. The bones have been there for a decade. Ambiguous forensic evidence convinces Louise that the child was held in restraints, tortured, and sealed in the cave where he starved to death. Fortunately, the novel describes none of that in real time.

Comparing missing persons reports to dental records helps Louise identify the child. Her parents gave him up for foster care and eventual adoption, although he disappeared in the woods while living with his foster family. His biological parents, Jeremy and Valerie Latchford, moved to a commune/cult/gathering-of-Gaia-worshippers called Verdant Circle. Members live in the woods that happen to be near the cave where the Latchford boy’s bones are found.

Verdant Circle has been around for generations. As is the custom in such novels, it has links to bankers and other powerful people, including one who runs a charitable foundation. Wealthy old people who gather for rituals while wearing masks, as if they were extras in Eyes Wide Shut, give the story a familiar feel — so familiar as to be stale.

The plot involves rumors of human sacrifice. A woman who worries that her young son will soon be sealed in a cave would like to leave the cult, but will she be allowed to escape? Louise feels pressure to solve the child’s murder and (if rumors and fears are to be credited) prevent other children from being killed. She is stifled in that effort by a Detective Inspector who doesn’t want her concerns to interfere with his complex and long-running financial investigation of the cult. (In the US, the financial crimes investigator would be an FBI agent stomping on local agencies so he can pursue a long-term investigation rather than solving or preventing current crimes.)

Sacrifices in thrillers are traditionally made on a solstice. One is upcoming, creating a “race against the clock” deadline for solving the crime, assuming it has anything to do with human sacrifice. The ending is meant to be nail-biting, but the novel’s premise is so silly that I couldn’t get excited by the drama that unfolds at the novel’s end.

Since human sacrifice and ritual murders happen in novels way more often than in real life (even in England), a novel that entertains the possibility of a cult making human sacrifices needs a plot twist to be entertaining. Matt Brolly makes efforts at misdirection, but identifying the bad guys turns out to be easy. The plot turns out to be just as predictable as the reader might expect.

Brolly’s polished prose is a plus, as is Louise’s characterization as a cop who might prefer to be a full-time mommy. Louise’s conflict with the financial crimes investigator adds some interest to a story that is otherwise pedestrian. If the plot had contained more original elements, I would be more enthused about recommending the novel. Fans of novels about cults and their unlikely rituals might form a better opinion of The Solstice than I did.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS