Dark Water by Robert Bryndza

First published in Great Britain in 2016; published by Grand Central Publishing on October 1, 2019

Dark Water is the third novel in the Erika Foster series that began with The Girl in the Ice. DCI Erika Foster is now assigned to a unit that handles drug cases and other big investigations. As she leads a team that pulls a chest of heroin from the bottom of a flooded quarry, the divers also find the skeletal remains of a 7-year-old girl who went missing in 1990, 26 years earlier. While Erika’s until does not handle homicides, she was a murder investigator before her current assignment. Risking the wrath of her supervisor, she pulls some strings and is assigned to lead the investigation into Jessica Collins’ murder.

The original investigation was a mess that resulted in a successful lawsuit by one of the suspects. DCI Amanda Baker, who was part of that investigation, became the scapegoat for what was seen as a botched investigation. She was fired and is now a hard-drinking retiree. To be fair, Amanda deserved her fate. She arrested Trevor Marksman because he had a sex offender conviction and appeared to have an interest in Jessica (or girls who resembled Jessica). He had a solid alibi and had to be released, but Amanda tipped off local vigilantes who burned down Marksman’s house with Marksman inside, leaving him with permanent scars. She also shagged Jessica’s father, much to the displeasure of Jessica’s mother. While it isn’t surprising that Amanda is drowning her sorrows during her declining years, the sorrows are largely self-inflicted.

DC Crawford, a part of Erika’s team, was also a part of Amanda’s team. He seems to be less than forthcoming about his knowledge of the original investigation. Another thorn in Erika’s foot is a high-powered barrister named Oscar Browne, who was camping with Jessica’s sister Laura when Jessica disappeared. Oscar seems to feel the need to intervene in the reopened investigation to protect the feelings of Jessica’s mother.

Amanda had the quarry searched a few weeks after Jessica went missing and doesn’t understand why the body wasn’t discovered at the time. That’s one of many mysteries that the intricate plot challenges the reader to solve. Another is whether Marksman was innocent or guilty. Erika regards Bob Jennings, a mentally impaired man who lived in a shack near the quarry, as another good suspect, but he hung himself and is unavailable for questioning. Another sex offender eventually enters the plot to add to a growing list of suspects. New murders ensue, adding fresh meat to the mystery.

Erika is assembled from the small details that give a character credibility. Her Slovakian sister Lenka comes for a visit, adding a bit of family tension, given her husband’s connection to the Mafia. Erika is a bit cold and standoffish — in other words, she’s British — but characters don’t need to be huggable to drive a mystery, and she serves well as the kind of protagonist who, with plodding determination, is able to solve a whodunit. Amanda, for all her faults, finds momentary redemption by taking a break from the bottle to offer some help that contributes to the mystery's resolution.

My knock on Robert Bryndza is that his style is just as plodding as his detectives. He doesn't bring much zest to his prose, resulting in a story that bogs down at times. The reader's persistence is nevertheless rewarded with a clever payoff in the form of an unexpected but credible resolution to the mystery.

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The Girl in the Ice by Robert Bryndza

First published in Great Britain in 2016; published in paperback by Grand Central Publishing on April 24, 2018

The Girl in the Ice gives the reader a standard crime novel plot: intrepid investigator continues to pursue leads after being suspended for an insubordinate disagreement with the investigative choices made by her bureaucratic bosses, who avoid upsetting powerful people by focusing suspicion on an easy but innocent target. The plot also includes a human trafficking element, which is the current trendy crime novel crime. Standard plots and trendy crimes are fine if they are made fresh, and The Girl in the Ice manages to stand slightly above the pack of standard but trendy crime novels with interesting characters and a solid story.

When a fellow finds a dead woman in the ice, DCI Erika Foster is assigned to the case. Foster has recently transferred from Manchester to London, carrying with her some heavy emotional baggage. The dead woman is the daughter of a prominent politician (and a baron, no less). The politician happens to be the wealthy owner of a private defense contractor, so PR is important, as is a quick and favorable resolution of the crime. Foster’s Slovak background is considered good for PR given the similar heritage of the victim’s mother, until Slovak discovers that the victim’s mother considers herself superior to Foster based on the respective cities in which they were born.

The investigation leads to a pub where the dead woman met a man — a pub that people are afraid to discuss. One of the fearful witnesses ends up dead, but Foster’s superiors view that as a coincidence, not as evidence that a serial killer is on the loose.

Naturally, Foster disagrees with her superiors and concludes that a serial killer is, in fact, killing attractive young prostitutes. And naturally, the politician doesn’t want his dead daughter lumped together with prostitutes, which accounts for the reluctance of Foster’s superiors to pursue her theory. But even if the politician’s daughter wasn’t a prostitute, she might have had something in common with the other murder victims, so Foster ignores her superiors and her suspension and investigates the crime in her own way.

Despite my weariness with human trafficking plots, The Girl in the Ice held my interest. The focus is not so much on trafficking but on a murder investigation that branches in several directions, and the killer’s identity is nicely concealed until the big reveal. Robert Bryndza takes time to build his characters and establish atmosphere, but the pace picks up considerably as the novel enters thriller territory in its stretch run. Erica is a bit of a stereotype, but she’s likable, or at least sympathetic. The novel has obviously benefited from effective marketing by its original publisher, but I enjoyed it, even if some of the accolades it has earned are a bit suspect. The Girl in the Ice is the first in a series, and while I might not go out of my way to read the next one, I certainly won’t avoid it.

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