Backlash: An Anna Travis Novel

by Lynda La Plante

Overview

Award-winning and international bestselling author Lynda La Plante returns with the eighth installment in her acclaimed series featuring London's Detective Chief Inspector Anna Travis.

Late night on a notorious high-rise estate in the borough of Hackney. A woman on the street never makes it home after a long night of drinking. A white van is being driven erratically. The driver is pulled over by the police and questioned. A suspect . . . an arrest . . . a confession. Case closed?

Five years earlier, a thirteen-year-old girl disappeared in broad daylight on a busy London street. Detective Chief Superintendent James Langton headed the investigation; the case was never solved. It has haunted him ever since. And now comes another confession, to this murder, and to one more besides. But is it too good to be true? After being pulled into the fray, Anna Travis isn't so sure that they have their man.

Then the suspect changes his story. . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062134349
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/15/2013
Series:	Anna Travis Series , #8
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Lynda La Plante's novels, including the Prime Suspect series, have all been international bestsellers. She is an honorary fellow of the British Film Institute and a recipient of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Dennis Potter Writers Award. Awarded a CBE, she is a member of the UK Crime Writers Awards Hall of Fame. She lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

08/26/2013
La Plante breaks no new ground in her eighth Anna Travis novel (after 2012’s Bloodline). Anna, now detective chief inspector for Specialist Casework, uses lateral thinking to restart stalled murder investigations, including one involving Henry Oates, the driver of a van that contained birthday party supplies—and a corpse. During his initial interrogation, Oates alluded to having committed other murders, and Anna must help determine the truth of his statements. Dull, routine police work focuses on identifying people who can provide information on Oates’s life and on looking for evidence to connect him with other killings. The interrogations themselves and the devising of strategies to get under the suspect’s skin have been done better elsewhere, including the TV series Prime Suspect (the author’s breakthrough). La Plante takes no risks in this installment. Agent: Gill Coleridge, Rogers, Coleridge & White (U.K.). (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

In this eighth entry in the Anna Travis series, La Plante offers another fine blend of police procedural and gritty thriller.

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