suspense, small-town, due-diligence, cold-case, stalker, colleagues, romance, crime-thriller, England, relationships, consultant, local-law-enforcement, secrets, friendship, unputdownable, murder, investigation*****

Civilian consultant and former DI Hillary Greene has a mixed assortment of team members plus old friends and acquaintances to assist in the attempts to solve cold cases of murder. This ten year old case involves a university student living in a boarding house and bedding every female he can lay hands on. The investigation is a real slog. Meanwhile, Hillary's stalker is escalating and she has brought he superior into the loop on that despite their mutual attraction. Very good suspense! ( )

Another cold case for ex-DI Hillary Greene. Ten years ago student Rowan Thompson was found stabbed. But no motive was ever found and no prime suspect. But Hillary still has her stalker an additional complication for her private life.
Yet again another good well-written mystery and story. As always I am drawn straight into the story and the variety of characters ( )

4.5 Stars

Hillary Green may no longer be a busy DI, but she is quite busy nonetheless. She is now a member of the Case Review Team, and is investigating cold cases. Having successfully solved the case in her new job as a civilian consultant, she is now investigating the murder of Rowan Thompson, a twenty-year-old killed ten years ago. Rowan had a reputation of being quite the Lothario. Could one of his previous partners been disgruntled enough to have found cause to brutally kill him?

Also, Hillary's stalker is still looming, and he is becoming far more aggressive with his messages and flowers. Her new boss, the ultra yummy Steven Crayle, has devised a plan to pretend that they are a couple to see if a bit of jealousy will draw the stalker out. This proves to be more of a challenge for Hillary because she is quite drawn to Steven. The feeling proves to be mutual. It is at this point that I realized that I should have read at least book twelve in this series.

Murder of a Lover, previously released as A Narrow Margin of Error, is book number thirteen in this series by Faith Martin. I am a voracious reader who especially likes to devour entire series. Although I jumped into the middle of this one with this book, it read perfectly well as a standalone. There was just enough said about Hillary's past to understand her motives and her approach to the situations faced before her.

However, Faith Martin has left us with a cliffhanger. I really NEED book 14, and cannot wait to read it to see what happens next. Thankfully, we do not have long to wait. A side note: the author has begun a new series, with a young new policewoman. This author is a definite autobuy for me now. I missed this series first time around, and it is really great to get a chance to read this now, and I will also try and read the previous titles.

Many thanks to Joffe Books and to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest re ( )

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

This instalment is made up of three strands: Hillary solves a 10 year old murder; Hillary's stalker pursues her; and Hillary and her boss Steven fake a relationship to draw out the stalker. The cold case was a little dull and the solution came out of nowhere and wasn't particularly satisfying. Hillary's stalker was revealed to be even more disturbed than we thought, but (for me) took up a disproportionate amount of the book. Hillary and Steven were adorable - we all know where fake relationships lead...

I'm deducting half a mark for the ending, which was abrupt and merely intended to make the reader buy the next instalment. ( )