No Trace (Barry Maitland, Allen & Unwin, $29.95 pb, ISBN 1741144701, November)

Three young girls have disappeared—the police think that the first two cases are almost definitely linked, but what of the third missing girl, the daughter of a publicity-seeking artist? Set among the art world in the recently and uneasily gentrified East End of London, Maitland’s eighth Brock and Kolla novel combines a page-turning plot with well-drawn characters. An extra bonus for the reader is Maitland’s use of the police-procedural framework for a deft examination of some of the philosophical complexities and moral quandaries posed by contemporary art. Add to that enough final-chapter twists and turns to keep the reader genuinely guessing until the last moment (and perhaps even beyond) and you have an unusually satisfying crime thriller. The cover blurb’s comparison to Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell is spot-on: this is a very English-style book from an Australian author—the kind of tale that deserves to end up as a Friday-night miniseries on the ABC. If you and your crime-reading customers haven’t caught on to Maitland yet, this would be a good place to start—while the characters of Brock and Kolla are well established, the banter between them in this book serves as an incentive to go back and read their earlier cases.

Tim Coronel is AB&P’s assistant editor

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2004, Thorpe-Bowker