While I love police procedurals, the sixth book in Eva Dolan’s award-winning Zigac and Ferreira series, One Half Truth, is a little too step-by-step even for me. However, it’s an excellent story involving British social issues. Anyone who has followed the series will appreciate the focus on the background and lives of the officers. When I read it, I was missing the background provided by the previous five books in the series.

Detective Inspector Zigac and Detective Sergeant Mel Ferreira are called to an unusual situation in Peterborough, England, a shooting death. They expect the usual, a drug-related or gang killing. Instead, the victim is a twenty-one-year-old journalism student, Jordan Radley. When they discover all of Jordan’s tech devices were stolen, they conclude the killer is hoping to hide a story that Jordan was working on.

As they investigate, they uncover possible stories that could have led to the young man’s death. Jordan’s first national story had recently appeared in a magazine. He befriended a group of men in their fifties and sixties who had been let go when Greenaway Engineering was sold to a foreign company. One hundred fifty men lost their jobs, and several were arrested and imprisoned for the violent actions that followed the factory closing. The story about male mental health issues could have stirred up trouble, but Jordan seemed to have remained friends with the men, and even came to their club. He had been there the night he was killed.

There had been an issue at college with young extremists. Jordan spoke against their neo-Nazi views and a campus appearance. Or, maybe the death was a result of his investigation of the helicopter accident that killed Marcus Greenaway soon after he sold the family firm. Jordan seemed to have a number of stories. The officers even track down a scared witness. It takes a while for them to connect a development company owned by Rachel Greenaway and her brother to cases of death, non-disclosure agreements, and land contamination. But, their boss warns Zigac and Ferreira against spending too much time investigating the Greenaways.

As I said, if I had more background with the entire police team, Dolan’s story might have been more interesting. She does include hints as to cases that went bad, and personal situations. Because I came into the series at the sixth book, I’m missing some context. Without it, this was just a step-by-step police investigation. Interesting, but no more than that. Readers really should have some context to appreciate One Half Truth.

One Half Truth by Eva Dolan. Raven Books, 2021. ISBN 9781408886553 (hardcover), 432p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I received a .PDF to review for a journal.