[.ca] Babel: A Kathy and Brock Mystery (ISBN 1559706686)

Racial tension and murder:
When Professor Springer, a well known and controversial philosopher is shot dead on the steps of the university where he teaches, all kinds of theories are put forward including racism, personal antagonism from other staff members and conspiracy theories regarding the kind of biogenetic programs being actively studied at this particular university. Detective Cheif Insspector Brock and his partner Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla are once again teamed to investigate this and subsequent linked crimes. It's a good, taut mystery thriller which makes me want to seek out previous books featuring this pair of detectives, to get a better overall picture of them.

Murder and Mayhem British Style:
For readers who miss the Detective Morse series from the retired Colin Dexter, Barry Maitland brings a stellar British police procedural. Maitland always comes up with plots that have a unique twist. For avid readers in the mystery/thriller genre, this is much appreciated in contrast to the standard recycled plots many authors offer. In BABEL, Kathy Kolla is on a leave of absence and considering leaving the police force for good. Police work is more than a job to Kathy, it's her talent so she is slowly drawn back into the hunt for a killer of a college professor. Suspects abound with ties to Islamic extremism and another path with suspects tied to medical genetics. I leave the story for you to discover for yourself. BABEL continues the excellent Brock and Kathy Kolla series. If you are a first time reader of this series, it would help to start at the beginning with THE MARX SISTERS, but not absolutely necessary. It is a stand alone book, but Maitland does not take a lot of time to go over what happened to his characters in previous books. An incident in SILVERMEADOW has a profound effect on Kathy's life, but is not really explained in this book. Whether you start with BABEL or an earlier work, you won't go wrong with this series.