{"id":406,"date":"2026-06-11T05:39:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T05:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=406"},"modified":"2026-06-11T05:39:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T05:39:00","slug":"justice-in-kings-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=406","title":{"rendered":"Justice in Kings Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Some Sort of Justice<\/em>
\n<\/em>By Peter Grainger
\nUnion Square & Co., 2026, 439 pages, $30\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 17th novel featuring the fictional Kings Lake Police in Norfolk, U..K, Peter Grainger has given us a marvelously complex procedural, full of suspense, danger, sticky moral choices, good writing, subtle humor, and some fine police work by an honest and competent team of detectives. It\u2019s as satisfying a read as fans of intelligent detective fiction will find.<\/p>\n

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Some Sort of Justice<\/em> is a novel about, among other things, politics. Not the partisan or electoral kind, but the career promotion, bureaucratic buck-passing, and butt-covering kind that can become perilous to all concerned when policework bumps up against parliamentary and even national security agendas that have nothing to do with \u201cto protect and to serve.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A word here on Cara Freeman. She\u2019s the protagonist in this novel, and \u2026 is one of Grainger\u2019s brilliant and memorable creations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Higher-ups in these worlds hate embarrassing press more than Dracula hates sunlight and the True Cross. And there could be some very bad press indeed, not to mention some culpability, caused by the politically radioactive hairball dropped into the lap of Detective Chief Inspector Cara Freeman, head of the county\u2019s murder squad.<\/p>\n

This one starts when DCI Freeman\u2019s boss, Harry Alexander, errand boy in this instance for the top of the police food chain, gives her a choice, which really isn\u2019t a choice, to investigate the drowning death of Lord Freddie Thorpe in a pool at a country party. The original inquest found the death to be accidental. Clearly, a verdict that a disparate group of influential people wishes to stand, for reasons that become increasingly clear as the investigation progresses. But some dodgy forensics and some slipshod work by the original investigating team call the accidental death conclusion into question. The dearly departed\u2019s sister, Lady Caroline Thorpe, wants a second look, and she\u2019s not the kind of person one ignores, even though various organs of government would very much like to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t begin to pretend I understand what has gone on with this case,\u201d Alexander croons when dropping the hot potato on Freeman and her team, \u201cIt\u2019s an unholy mess. I need someone who can sort it out and put it to bed without making a fuss.\u201d No translation necessary. He could as easily and more honestly have said, \u201cBury this stink bomb\u00a0 in the back yard as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

DCI Freeman salutes and accepts the assignment. But she has no intention of delivering the \u201cnothing to see here\u201d whitewash clearly desired by the time-server brass. She\u2019ll do a complete and honest investigation, though the heavens fall. In the process, she puts her career in jeopardy. In Grainger\u2019s Norfolk Constabulary, the path to the chief constable\u2019s office is not paved with competence and integrity.<\/p>\n

A word here on Cara Freeman. She\u2019s the protagonist in this novel, and, along with Detective Sergeant D.C.Smith (now retired after a 30+ year police career), is one of Grainger\u2019s brilliant and memorable creations. The beating heart of the previous Kings Lake story has been the intelligent and amusing Smith. But in this one, Smith yields center stage to Cara, who is small of frame but possessed of a weapons-grade intelligence and unshakeable integrity. And she\u2019s tough as a sheet-metal screw. Those who cross her or attempt to bully or ignore her come to regret it, usually on the spot. Scenes in which she deals with those who get crosswise with her are worth the price of admission.<\/p>\n

As Freeman and her team start pulling strings on this hairball, it quickly becomes clear that there\u2019s more here than some hopeless and hapless schlub, far gone in drink, drowning in a swimming pool when no one was around to haul his sorry carcass out before he breathed his last. The swells at the party lawyer up. Other attendees leave the country. Still others are threatened into silence.<\/p>\n

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The case officially becomes a Gordian knot when we learn that the spooks are involved in this one. A free society needs the secret squirrels to keep an eye on our enemies and protect us in a hostile world.\u00a0 But this lot is not obliged to follow the rules the rest of us are. Some of their rules of engagement would make a buzzard queasy. This case is no exception.<\/p>\n

The presence of the spooks is because one of the party\u2019s attendees is a member of Parliament who holds a sensitive position controlling arms sales and is doing just what shadowy, off-stage figures want him to. But there are these embarrassing pictures of the Honorable Member with some of his younger constituents in, uh, informal situations.<\/p>\n

The case is finally resolved, with no help and considerable resistance from above. I\u2019ll leave the details of how the motives are unpacked and the villains identified to those who read the book. I\u2019ll only say \u2014 no spoiler alert necessary \u2014 that the solution justifies the book\u2019s title.<\/p>\n

In addition to the criminal case, in the book, Grainger gives us two sensitive profiles. One is of Cara\u2019s caring for her mother, who is losing the plot thanks to dementia. The other is of the spook dealing with the final days of her aged father. These profiles are typical of the humanity that infuses all of Grainger\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

On the day I was finishing this review, I received an email from a friend thanking me for recommending Grainger\u2019s work to him, which he described as literate, subtle, complex, satisfying, and permeated with a clever, understated sense of humor. He\u2019s spot on, and is now binge-reading the series.<\/p>\n

The Kings Lake series is also a saga and a serial. Each book covers an individual criminal case and can be read with enjoyment as a stand-alone. But greater enjoyment is to be had reading the stories in order, beginning with 2013\u2019s An Accidental Death<\/em>, as Grainger has created a cast of recurring characters who have their own stories and who grow and evolve from book to book. References to previous cases and to episodes in the lives and careers of the recurring characters pop up in all the books and would be confusing to those who come late to the Kings Lake story. There are significant developments in the lives and careers of this recurring cast in Justice<\/em>, especially in the life of Detective Chris Waters, whom we first saw in Accidental Death<\/em> as the raw rookie that Smith is assigned to train and mentor. Now a detective sergeant, Waters will soon be a detective inspector and a husband.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, Some Sort of Justice<\/em> is the first of Grainger\u2019s novels to be published first in book form. Previously, his work was only available in Kindle and audiobook form. Those who comply with my strong urging and begin the series will be glad of the experience and puzzled by what took paper and ink book publishers \u2014 now doing the honorable thing \u2014 to take so long to recognize and publish a writer of such surpassing quality.<\/p>\n

Read more On Belfast<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bye, Bye, Barney<\/strong><\/p>\n

About Time for Sergeant Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Looking Back to Read Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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