ow in the middle of her six-month exchange with the Westford Connecticut Police Department, Scottish Detective Annie Macpherson is barely tying up the loose ends from her last case when a new one appears. The vicious murder of a local priest has all the marks of a ritualistic attack, but what is the motive behind it? Before they can answer that, Annie and her colleague, Detective Dave Ellison, find they have another body on their hands whose injuries are too similar for it to be coincidence. And if that wasn’t enough, Annie’s love life has just got more complicated. Joined by Detective Bronski, the third member of their team, they find themselves drawn into a statewide investigation into child pornography. Their lines of inquiry are tangled by parents who want to take the law into their own hands, and instances of domestic abuse, not to mention the question of how high the intrigue goes – can they even trust their own police chief? In her second Annie Macpherson novel, Barbara Fagan Speake once again dissects the issues which drive her characters – the potent themes of love, revenge and moral ambiguity. The twist here is that we also see into the mind of the murderer, the desire to observe the reactions of the victims, and the motivation of those who hide dark secrets behind the face they present to the world.  

Scottish detective Annie Macpherson, on an exchange with the Westford Police in Connecticut didn’t believe that Angela Goodman was in danger when she presented herself at the station. Now Annie knows different. Angela has been brutally attacked in her own home and left for dead. Annie is determined to make amends and catch the culprit, not only for Angela’s sake, but her own. She’s a third generation cop and has a tradition of fine police work to uphold. Within days, a fatal car crash in Massachusetts initially seems to be an accident but subsequent evidence points to something much more sinister. The result: yet another victim and yet another detective trying to fit the pieces of a jigsaw together. A convoluted trail of clues and misdirection propels this story at a cracking pace. On the way, there is murder, suicide and revenge. What makes Primed by the Past a police procedural with a difference is that it’s written by a psychologist, so we also see into the lives of the characters, their relationships and personal tragedies. Needless to say, nobody is quite who they seem and as Annie investigates the layers of lies and half truths, the body count starts to mount. It then becomes a race against time to prevent any further deaths, a race that Annie must win.