What happens when your dad goes to work one day and doesn’t come home?

‘We waited and waited for him,’ says the person, who decided the murdered man would not be forgotten.

And years later the memory of Detective Sergeant Helen Carter’s father comes back to haunt her when her first job in CID is a murder inquiry.

Her boss Detective Inspector Jack Craven doesn’t want a woman on his team. 

And he particularly doesn’t want the daughter of former Detective Inspector Richard Carter.

Authentic

‘I don’t run things like he did,’ he says, jabbing a finger at her. ‘And I know exactly why you are here. This is just a box-ticking exercise.’

It’s 1977 and Carter doesn’t just have to demonstrate her worth as a detective, she’s also got to prove she’s as good a man as any of the other officers on Craven’s squad.

And it’s this authentic sense of an almost forgotten time and place that makes The Forgotten by JV Baptie, a graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University’s MA in Creative Writing, such an intriguing thriller.

What the blurb says:

What if everything was a lie?

Newly-promoted, but not welcome in CID, Detective Sergeant Helen Carter is tasked with investigating a murder in an old abandoned picture house.

The case takes a chilling turn when the business card of an ex-cop is found at the scene.

Fast-paced

Helen must piece together the case before the bodies mount up around her, and before the killer strikes closer to home…

Delve into the underworld of Scotland’s capital city in this fast-paced thriller.

It’s not just the casual sexism – the assumption that the only woman in the CID room will always make the tea – but also the reminders of smoke-filled offices, Steptoe and Son and Ena Sharples on the TV and Vesta ready meals and Smash mashed potatoes.

Corruption

Truly those were the days…and Baptie evokes them brilliantly.

Add in a vicious serial killer, whose victims appear to be chosen at random, a hint of corruption and an alcoholic boyfriend, and this is a layered and thought-provoking crime thriller debut from Baptie.

Review by Sue Featherstone.

Available to buy on Amazon.