Clean Break - Hardcover

Val McDermid grew up in Kirkcaldy on the east coast of Scotland, then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. Now a full-time writer, she divides her time between Manchester and Northumberland.

The fourth Kate Brannigan mystery finds the British equivalent of Kinsey Millhone trying to crack a case in which a ring of smash-and-grabbers is stealing artwork from country estates. Kate is involved because her security firm was responsible for one of the burgled homes. The owners of the estates are reluctant to bring in the police because so much of their income is generated by tourist excursions through their homes and they fear the publicity. In one of the homes, the intruders' activity is recorded, and Kate recognizes one of them--it's Dennis, Kate's close pal and her connection to the criminal underworld. She has some hard choices to make but is willing to put them off if she can recover the stolen property. Dennis points her in the right direction, but soon the case takes a far more sinister turn, with people connected to the thefts turning up dead all over the countryside. When a trip to Italy reveals Mob involvement, Kate realizes the stakes are much higher than a few pieces of stolen art and that her life means nothing to those involved in the crimes. Brannigan is tough, funny, and sometimes profane. Wes Lukowsky