Cast Iron: The red-hot penultimate case of the Enzo series (The Enzo Files Book 6)

Product Information

In 1989, a killer dumped the body of twenty-year-old Lucie Martin into a picturesque lake in the West of France. Fourteen years later, during a summer heatwave, a drought exposed her remains. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. In 2003, the skeleton of a young woman is recovered from a dry riverbed in France, but her murder remains unsolved. Until the cold case falls into the hands of forensic expert Enzo McLeod, who has vowed to solve six cold cases as part of a bet with his son-in-law, journalist Roger Raffin. But the closer Enzo gets to uncovering the truth, the more dangerous the game becomes, and soon he finds that his own family is in danger from people who will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden. Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. The Fraysse family history is as twisted as Enzo's own. And in his pursuit of truth, the depths of deceit threaten to consume Enzo - and that which he cherishes most.

I have only read the first book in this series and that was a few years and many books ago thus I'm not overly familiar with the series but Cast Iron reads well as a stand alone so it doesn't matter. There is a sense of tying off loose ends as befits the final novel in a series which is extremely satisfying but mostly it is a good read. The plot has plenty of twists and turns to keep the interest going and with new developments in every chapter it never flags. I think there will be a few surprises in it for series readers and the conclusion certainly came as a surprise to me.No one was ever convicted of her murder. But now, forensic expert Enzo Macleod is reviewing this stone-cold case – the toughest of those he has been challenged to solve.

In the third thrilling instalment of the series, Enzo is running out of time in more ways than one... In the second novel in the China series, Li Yan and Margaret Campbell are reluctantly reunited, on the trail of a killer reenacting a series of gruesome rituals

Summary

I hope my relatively lukewarm review won't put people off trying this series. Even with favourite authors, we all prefer some of their stuff to others, but any Peter May book is still head and shoulders above most of the competition. And this is as well-written and strongly plotted as always, while the French setting gives it an added level of interest. So, despite my personal reservations, I still recommend the series, especially if the complicated family relationships aspect appeals to you. When a mass grave containing eighteen mutilated female corpses is discovered in Shanghai, detective Li Yan is sent from Beijing to establish if the bodies are linked to an unsolved murder in the capital. Here, Li will be working with Mei Ling, deputy head of Shanghai's serious crime squad. There’s a pretty interesting concept behind Cast Iron, and I liked the way that the book’s title refers to a type of alibi. This book is part of a series following Scottish forensic expert Enzo Macleod as he researches a number of cold cases as the result of a bet that he made. It’s a bit like what would happen if Dave Gorman was on CSI, and I thought that it was an interesting quirk. It’s also worth noting that despite being the sixth (I think!) book in the series, it works just as well as a standalone – this is actually the first Peter May book that I’ve read, although I’ve heard of him before. Enzo talks to Lucie’s boyfriend, the ex-cop whom the families of the Bordeaux Six hired to investigate, Blanc’s wife and the women he pimped. He locates Lucie’s missing skull and makes a discovery that changes the whole complexion of the case. The more he hears, the less he is convinced that Blanc is Lucie’s killer. IN THE RED-HOT FINALE TO PETER MAY'S CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ENZO FILES, ENZO MACLEOD WILL FACE HIS MOST CHALLENGING COLD CASE YET.