The Night She Died

British police detective Luke Thanet tracks a housewife's killer in the debut novel of an award-winning mystery series "in the P. D. James manner" (Kirkus Reviews).

Luke Thanet is a British police inspector with a soft heart, bad back, and bloodhound's nose for murder. When a young woman is found stabbed through the heart with a kitchen knife, Thanet and his partner, the brusque young Mike Lineham, rush to the scene. Julie Holmes lies dead in her front hall, wrapped in her overcoat, her handbag missing. The perpetrator could have been a burglar, a jealous husband, or a spurned lover. But Detective Inspector Thanet never leaps to conclusions, and always takes his time; it seems the key to finding this killer lurks twenty years in the past.
 
When Julie was a child, she witnessed a murder--a traumatic event so scarring she repressed it entirely. Thanet believes that before she died, Julie's memory came back--and so did the killer . . .
 
The first in the series featuring Inspector Thanet, a "most likable policeman," The Night She Died is a compelling procedural from an acclaimed CWA Silver Dagger winner (Yorkshire Post).
 
The Night She Died is the 1st book in the Inspector Thanet Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.