Blood Line: An Anna Travis Novel

by Lynda La Plante

Overview

Award-winning and international bestselling author Lynda La Plante brings back her popular series character, London Detective Chief Inspector Anna Travis of the Murder Squad, to work a seventh case in Blood Line. La Plante, who bestselling crime fiction author Karin Slaughter (Blindsided) says “practically invented the thriller,” is best known for her Prime Suspect novels, the basis for the wildly popular BBC series starring Helen Mirren and a recent U.S. incarnation featuring Maria Bello. In Blood Line, Anna takes on a high profile missing person investigation which might well develop into the hunt for a murderer, especially when a pool of blood is discovered but no body. Crime fiction fans who appreciate a good cop and a good murder—especially Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George, Peter Robinson, and Val McDermid readers—will be eagerly following the trail of evidence every step of the way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062134325
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/23/2012
Series:	Anna Travis Series , #7
Pages:	467
Product dimensions:	5.30(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.

What People are Saying About This

Karin Slaughter

“Lynda La Plante practically invented the thriller.”

Editorial Reviews

La Plante’s well-crafted seventh Anna Travis novel (after 2011’s Blood Fury) finds the London detective chief inspector looking into a missing person case. Evidence of a pool of blood is discovered directly under the bed of 26-year-old car mechanic Alan Rawlins, who lived with his attractive fiancé, Tina Brooks, but there’s no body and no identifiable DNA. Travis and her team must investigate Rawlins’s character and context in lieu of anything more concrete. As they dig deeper, the image of the hardworking, straitlaced Rawlins is replaced by one of a hard-living gay surfer. Several credible suspects emerge, and, in a nice twist, the identity of the victim comes into question. A lively plot and a number of satisfying revelations offset the leisurely denouement. La Plante’s habit of revealing a little too much about earlier cases or books may frustrate readers who are joining the series late. Agent: Gill Coleridge, Rogers, Coleridge & White. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

It contains some nice twists, and the character of Travis continues to evolve and grow in complexity.

Booklist

Fun, fearsome and fiercely independent.

Sunday Telegraph

Lynda La Plante practically invented the thriller.

Karin Slaughter

The bestselling series is up to number seven (after Blind Fury). Now DCI, Anna tenaciously pursues a missing persons case. For all fans of the "Prime Suspect" television series, also La Plante's creation.

Library Journal

A seemingly run-of-the-mill missing persons investigation evolves into something more complicated in this installment of La Plante's Anna Travis series. An attractive London DCI, Anna Travis still reels from her boyfriend's murder, prompting her former lover and supervisor to second-guess the handling of a suspicious missing persons case. Alan Rawlins' father, an employee of the court system, has pulled strings to force the police to cast a wider net while searching for the absent mechanic. Initially skeptical of whether or not Rawlins was, indeed, missing or simply vanished of his own volition, Travis resents being ordered to expand the investigation but after a while, comes to suspect that the likable young man is the victim of foul play. It doesn't help that his girlfriend, Tina Brooks, comes across as unconcerned that her live-in boyfriend may be dead or that Travis is saddled with a gay partner she doesn't much like. Soon, the missing persons case turns into much more, and Travis and her team find themselves digging into an underworld of drugs and deception. La Plante intends for Travis to come across as a crack investigator, but falls far short. Instead, Travis is short and unpleasant to her subordinates, lacking in criminal insight, ignorant of the laws she is supposed to enforce, and she knows little about the investigative process. La Plante also pads the story by repeating the steps the investigators have taken in the case over and over, even though nothing new emerges from the reexamination. In addition, the plot twists come across as artificial and contrived, with cartoonish characterization. As a protagonist, Travis is bumbling and mean-spirited. The novel lacks suspense, making it a far cry from those featuring Jane Tennison, the female DCI from her Prime Suspect series. Plodding and dull, this thriller probably won't appeal to even the most die-hard La Plante fan.

Kirkus Reviews