High-Wired - The Fine Line, #1

If you like Rachel Abbott, Mel Sherratt, and Val McDermid, you'll be gripped by this exciting new crime novel by best-selling author Andrea Frazer. High-Wired is the first volume in The Fine Line series, which sees Frazer show off her dark side as she moves into the world of police procedurals. The novel introduces us to DI Olivia Hardy, a firm but fair cop, and her new partner, DS Lauren Groves. Their wildly different backgrounds and styles of policing cause problems at first, but the two women bond over a shared love of music, and over the pressures of juggling complicated family lives with the horrors of the job. Both women try to reconcile their problematic family lives – Olivia's issues with her teenage children, Lauren's collapsing marriage – with the demands of a job that requires heart and soul. Their beat is a decaying coastal town in the south of England – a shadow of its Victorian glory – and criminals are lurking even where you'd least expect them. As Olivia and Lauren investigate a harrowing murder, the events of the case spiral – and so do the issues in their personal lives …