A first-class introduction to what I can only hope will be a first-rate series

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	• Die with Me Elena Forbes MacAdam/Cage, 2007 - 350 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The cold light of day was so harsh and unforgiving...

Bringing the wet and chilly streets of London to life, author Elena Forbes, in her debut suspense novel Die With Me, introduces a crack group of police investigators who are called upon to investigate a series of suspect suicides in the West London suburb of Barnes.

The novel begins with a meeting in a neglected church where an older man meets a teenage girl and where, in the cold and wintry light of the evening, he promises to her that "we're in this together, just you and I." Frantically lapping up his words about love and about death, and also opening a veritable floodgate of confession and neediness, this unidentified man can barely contain himself when this young girl finally becomes his.

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Mark Tartaglia is set adrift after his boss and friend Trevor Clark has been hospitalized after a motorcycle accident. Stretched out in bed and in a coma and obviously out of action for the foreseeable future, Trevor can do little to assuage Mark's insecurities at becoming the acting Senior Investigating Officer. But before he can even stop to take a breath, Mark is called, together with his trusted colleague Sam Donovan, to the scene of a suspicious death.

The victim is a fourteen-year-old girl by the name of Gemma Kramer, who supposedly fell from the organ gallery inside St, Sebastian's church two days ago. At first, Ealing CID initially assumed it was an accident or a suicide, as they didn't find anything suspicious. After a pretty cursory forensic exam of the ground floor, the crime scene was released.

But just after the church was cleaned up and re-opened for business, a witness suddenly materialized out of the woodwork saying she saw the girl going into the church with a man a couple of hours before her body was found and they were clearly seen kissing outside. Upon closer examination, the whole incident seems to have been carefully prepared with lit candles and burning incense, and then the girl had fallen to her death while the man suddenly disappeared.

Seeking answers, Mark turns to the local Pathologist and ex-girlfriend Fiona Blake, who after running a full toxic analysis tells him that Gemma had traces of alcohol and GHB in her system even although there appears to be no sexual motivation for the crime. Mark, however, is certain that Gemma's death was no accident, especially when Fiona tells him that a lock of the girl's hair had been cut off and pulled out at the root, as though it had been sliced right off at the scalp.

Working diligently, Mark, Sam, and their team start checking the Coroners' records for suicides of young women in London over the last couple of years, even though Donovan is sure there is no grounds so far to think Gemma's death was anything other than a one-off. Soon they uncover the records of two other girls who met a similar fate: Ellie Best and Laura Beneditti, both under twenty and who were both severely depressed.

Suddenly a portrait develops of a terrifying new serial killer who is preying on the young, the naïve and the easily suggestible, vulnerable teenage girls who feel as though there is very little hope and very little to live for. And then there's the thirty-something Marion Spear, who came down from the North to work as an estate agent, in Ealing and who reportedly fell to her death from the roof of a car park.

The way Marion died was so different to the other three; there was no suicide note, and the local CID investigation into Spear's death had been cursory at best with the verdict again accidental death. Even though she only lived a few blocks away from where Gemma was killed, she just doesn't fit the victim profile. On the day she had died she had taken a client to visit a flat, after that nobody saw her again and the flat was quite close to the car park where she fell.

Mark is positive that Marion's age and state of mind are important considerations in a case that is threatening to disrupt the cohesiveness of his unit. When DCI Carolyn Steele arrives to head up the case and replace Clark, much to Mark's annoyance, she turns to the cocky forensic pathologist Patrick Kennedy for advice. Self seeking and arrogant so unashamedly sure of himself, Kennedy is only too prepared to dismiss Marion Speer's death so categorically.

Mark is positive that Marion Spear could be an early victim. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and unless Mark and Donavon can establish the connection between Laura, Ellie and Gemma, the killer will strike probably again. When Steele starts receiving emails, a portrait begins to emerge of a cold and manipulative killer who is organized with a grandiose sense of self-worth and who is incapable of feeling empathy, guilt or remorse.

A page-turner from the outset, Forbes' police investigators are compelling characters as she details all of their insecurities and flaws as they battle petty departmental politics while also racing against time to catch the killer. When the suspects gradually line-up, all eyes point towards the bookshop owner Harry Angel, the man whom Marion Spear had been showing a flat and the last person to known to have seen her alive, even though there is no apparent motive and nothing to link Angel to the crime scene.

The cold light of day can indeed certainly be ruthless and unforgiving and the author bathes her novel in a sort of eerie and brittle glow, the descriptions of rain-driven streets of London adding much to the suspenseful atmosphere. As the story races towards a heart-stopping climax on this preternaturally harsh London winter, Mark, Sam and Carolyn discover that the enemy, the murderer of these poor young women, is hiding just where they least expect, forever lurking in the unlikeliest of places, ready to strike just when they least expect. Mike Leonard October 07.

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More, please.

I read Die With Me just after finishing Peter Robinson's newest mystery. Mr. Robinson writes so well, that I usually have a sense that the next book I read after his is a distinctly inferior creation. Not so with Elena Forbe's first novel. Both character development and plot creation are astonishingly good for a first effort. I don't know if the methodology of the book's serial killer has a basis in an actual crime or not, but it has the ring of believability. The cast of characters she created, and their interrelationships, appear capable of supporting a long number of episodes in this series.

I definitely plan to add Ms. Forbes' name to the list of authors whose books I put on my must read list.

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A first-class introduction to what I can only hope will be a first-rate series

To my mind, one of the most important aspects of whether an ongoing mystery series succeeds or fails is if readers are, ultimately, just as compelled by the inner struggles and interpersonal relationships among its protagonists as they are by the mystery plot itself. After all, these police officers and detectives are the ones readers will have to spend time with, book after book. If they're not interesting, what's the point? Based on her first novel, promising new author Elena Forbes is one mystery writer who agrees with me. Featuring not only a charismatic, elusive serial killer but also a complex cast of investigators, each of whom carries his or her own compelling story, DIE WITH ME is a first-class introduction to what I can only hope will be a first-rate series.

At the center of the investigation is a mysterious killer named "Tom," a charming, handsome stranger who engages in suicide pacts with young, emotionally vulnerable women. When they meet to kill themselves, only one of them ends up dying --- usually drugged by Tom and hurled to fall to her death. As for Tom, he walks away, emotionally charged by the act of committing murder and already plotting to find his next victim.

Assigned to the case is London detective Mark Tartaglia, a jaded investigator who has been trying to cope with the facts that his superior officer is in a coma and has been replaced by Carolyn Steele, an attractive, confident but sometimes abrasive investigator who is a little too close to the psychological profiler who has been assigned to the case, a pompous jerk with whom Tartaglia has clashed on a previous case. He is also sorting out his feelings about medical examiner Fiona Blake, with whom he had a one-night stand weeks ago.

Tartaglia's partner, Samantha (Sam) Donovan, has picked up on Tartaglia and Blake's attraction for one another --- and she's trying not to let her own disappointment over these developments cloud her work on the case. A sharp investigator, Donovan is also single and lonely --- a combination that might lead to heartache...or worse.

Rounding out the staff of investigators are several other secondary characters, each of whom adds his or her own personality and perspective to the problem at hand. Even as the officers run into a series of brick walls, red herrings and missed opportunities as they attempt to track down Tom, readers are drawn into not only the search for the killer but also into the behind-the-scenes intrigues and conflicts that develop during the investigation.

For those who, as I did, get drawn up in these characters' lives and work, there's good news. Forbes skillfully combines an open-ended narrative with just enough closure to satisfy ardent mystery fans. Given the number of unanswered questions, though, not to mention the ominous, forward-looking ending, it's clear that Forbes intends to explore her compelling cast of characters in what promises to be a gripping ongoing series. I can't wait for the next one.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

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Outstanding read

I won't try to match the three excellent detailed reviews already posted. I'll just add that I was in a rush last week when I stopped by the library, and hurriedly chose four promising-sounding (from the jacket blurbs) books from the "New Mysteries" shelf.

The first three I read a few pages of and put right back in the tote bag to return. "Die With Me" I just finished, and it held my rapt attention from first page to last. Good atmosphere, believable characters, perfect plausibility, seamlessly literate writing.

I was astonished to learn that it's a first novel. I hope Ms. Forbes has many more in her. I'll be watching for them.

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An admirable airplane book.

This is a debut novel for Forbes. I picked it up at the airport bookshop partially because of all the reasonably good blurbs on the back cover. The Literary Review liked it. The Times liked it. I'll go along with those worthies. I liked it. I didn't love it, but I liked it.

The story features a string of murders of vulnerable young women. At first glance, they appear to be suicides. It is only by chance that the police realize that there seems to be a serial killer involved. D.I. Mark Tartaglia is assigned to the case. Tartaglia is too good looking and aggressive for his own good (and for his career's own good). The case causes him to reexamine a number of relationships (both romantic and otherwise) that he thought he well understood.

I did not find the novel terribly memorable, and I was at least a teeny bit disenchanted with the ending. This said, an admirable airplane book. It was precisely the ticket for helping the time pass by.

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