Review of Dark Water by Robert Brenda

Firstly – wowza – what a fabulous cover! Love it.

Dark Water is the third novel in the Erika Foster Series. Often you find a new series starts off brilliantly, but then begins to peter out, and so it was with a little trepidation that I began Dark Water.

I shouldn’t have worried. Erika Foster gets better and better.

We join Erika after she’s been ‘encouraged’ to leave the Murder Investigation Squad after she made a bit of a fuss at the end of the previous novel ‘The Night Stalker’ for being looked over for promotion. A couple of months or so have passed, and Erika is now working with the drug squad when she receives a tip off that there is a large quantity of heroin stashed at the bottom of a quarry.

Taking a diving team out to the quarry, she finds the drugs, but also gets more than she’s bargained for when a body is discovered. Worse, the body is that of Jessica Collins, a child who went missing on her way to a birthday party twenty-six years ago.

Erika, in her inimitable style, puts the squeeze on Assistant Commissioner Marsh to allocate the case to her, (one of the many things I love about Erika!) much to the chagrin of her current boss.

But a case as old as this one could even beat Erika. Despite turning over every stone, she is still no closer to finding out who killed Jessica. Could the luck of our favourite female detective finally be running out?

Erika is joined once more by Peterson and Moss. I adore these two. They provide a real alternative to Erika’s sometimes dour approach – they are good for her and she for them – a brilliant team.

Like the previous two Erika Foster novels, they are fast paced, intricately woven and keep you guessing. The writing is brilliant, but that is almost a given with Robert Bryndza, and the stories believable.

Erika continues to weave herself into my heart, and as we progress through the series, the author has started to show us even more of who Erika really is, rather than the facade she portrays as a senior woman detective. There’s a particularly poignant moment with her sister’s child that really pulled on my heartstrings.

Erika is flawed, but that just makes her more real for me. She’s the master of a one-line put down, which does provide a bit of light relief from time to time. One of the highlights I made as I was going through this book was made by one of her superiors who said ‘You seem to lurch between brilliance and bone-headed stupidity’. I couldn’t have explained Erika better myself.

This is definitely one of those series that I will hotly anticipate and will grab as soon as it becomes available. Utterly brilliant as always.