In London’s Hampstead there is a serial killer at large - Five women so far. After a long investigation. DCI Tom Allen is quietly replaced and soon a suspect is discovered.
Believe that the tale lost the plot in its 'golden age of detection' section.
A NetGalley book. ( )

This was recommended by a Lord Peter Wimsey group. It is Golden Age detective fiction brought up to the 21st century. I did not find the lightness of writing I am used to in Sayers' originals, and the police are required to be pretty stupid to enable the plot to work. The psychologist who imagines himself to be LPW, and just happens to have a girlfriend who is a policewoman on the case is both farfetched, incompletely fleshed out, and not well tied up afterwards. Sorry... ( )

If you're looking for a traditional yet quirky murder mystery then look no further than Death in Profile. It went in directions I never saw coming and kept me on my toes and completely entertained throughout. It's filled with good old-fashioned police work and is refreshingly devoid of expletives.

I knew from the first word, 'Boyo', that I was going to enjoy Death in Profile. Boyo is a dog living on the street with his vagrant master. It is Boyo who finds a body in an alley one day and, in a move resembling Lassie, raises the alarm. The police find this murder similar to other unsolved crimes and, when they run out of ideas, call in profiler Dr Peter Collins. With Dr Collins' help, a suspect is arrested and found guilty but moments too late an alibi is discovered.

Dr Collins blames himself for the conviction of an innocent man and, like a tortoise in its shell, retreats into the safety of his own brain where Dr Peter Collins becomes Lord Peter Wimsey, the fictional detective. Hilariously, his partner, DC Karen Willis, and her police colleagues all play along in order to bring him out of his delusion but to also track down the real murderer.

Death in Profile is such good fun and I was enjoying the Lord Peter Wimsey scenes so much that I forgot about trying to solve the crime, and completely missed the hidden clues by not questioning certain things. WIth the Lord Peter Wimsey delusion, it felt like two books in one as the past and the present collide in order to solve a modern day crime, proving that even with so many technological advances, sometimes all it takes is a clever piece of deduction.

I really enjoyed Death in Profile and I'm eager to see how it compares to the second in the series, Miss Christie Regrets. With such fresh and amusing writing, I'm sure the Hampstead Murders series will quickly become a modern classic for murder mystery fans.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion. ( )

Katherine Barker didn’t make it to her sister’s flat that night. She was found murdered … the fifth victim of a serial killer who’d been nicknamed the ‘condom killer’. The MO was the same as the others – a brutal hammer blow to the back of the head; rape; and chloroform burns around her mouth. The residents of Hampstead in London are getting jumpy and the higher-ups decide to replace DCI Tom Allen with DS Simon Collison. They need a break in this case. They need it now. On his own, and being fed information by DI Bob Metcalfe, Tom Allen decides to continue working it on his own.

They determine they need a profiler. DC Karen Willis suggests Peter Collins, a psychologist and her boyfriend. As it turns out, Peter is a great admirer of the fictional Lord Peter Wimsey, who had in the 1920’s began investigating crime as a hobby. While the novel held merit, great characters, and unique twists, I do feel that the emphasis on Wimsey was a downside for this novel. Technology was accessible, but a preference was placed on good old-fashioned cop instincts. In some ways, this reads like a cozy except I felt it was just a bit more graphic than most cozies. Rating: 3 out of 5. ( )

A body is found in leafy Hampstead and so begins another murder mystery reminiscent of Midsomer Murders.
An old fashioned who dun it with police officers Allen and Metcalf on the case.
Great read! ( )