In Deep Water is Sam Blake’s second novel featuring Detective Garda Cat Connolly. A tense crime procedural, it is set in South Dublin and North Wicklow with the action kicking off when Cat’s friend Sarah Jane Hansen goes missing.
A student at DCU, Sarah Jane works part time job as a waitress in a trendy restaurant called The Rookery. She was last seen leaving work when her boss, Billy Roberts, put her in a taxi. According to Roberts, he sent her home because she wasn’t feeling well. But Sarah Jane didn’t make it home and when Cat investigates, she discovers that someone has ransacked Sarah Jane’s flat.
Fears intensify
Then a body turns up and Cat fears the worst. It turns out not to be Sarah Jane but with her friend still missing Cat’s remains worried. Her fears intensify when she discovers a second waitress is also missing.
Is Roberts telling the truth? And what’s his relationship to restaurant owner Richard Farrell?
The investigation leads Cat and her boss Detective Inspector Dawson O’Rourke into a seedy and dangerous world. Every set of CCTV images throws up further questions and the fears for Sarah Jane mount.
Readers of Blake’s first Cat Connolly novel, Little Bones, will enjoy how the relationship between Cat and DI O’Rourke develops in In Deep Water.
This is shaping up into a good series and I’m looking forward to getting to know the central characters a little better the next instalment.