The Suffering of Strangers by Caro Ramsay

The Suffering of Strangers by Caro Ramsay
Buy The Suffering of Strangers by Caro Ramsay at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Crime
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: We're well into an established series but The Suffering of Strangers reads well as a standalone. It's a complex, satisfying story with characters who're well fleshed out. Definitely recommended.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 256/9h47m	Date: November 2017
Publisher: Severn House
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-0727887603
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Roberta (please call her 'Bobby') Chisholm is sleep deprived. Six-week-old Sholto doesn't ever seem to sleep, so Bobby's like a robot. There's a little light on the horizon, though: her husband James is up for a new job, which could mean quite a bit more money. When he rings to tell her that he's got it he's obviously over the moon and tells Bobby to go to the local shop and get a bottle of champagne so that they can celebrate. For once Sholto has dropped off to sleep and when Bobby gets to the shop she's reluctant to disturb him: surely there won't be a problem if she dashes into the shop to get the bubbly? She can keep an eye on the car through the shop window, but when she comes out, the car has gone...

... only to be found round the corner a few minutes later. But Sholto has gone and he's been replaced by a slightly younger baby with Down's Syndrome. It could have been coincidence that the next day DI Costello is faced with the problem of a woman who had a baby, but there doesn't seem to be a baby around when the social worker visits her and when push comes to shove the mother escapes out of the bathroom window with her suitcase. CCTV tracks her and a heavily-pregnant woman to a street in Glasgow - but then they both disappear.

Before I started to read The Suffering of Strangers I read Bookbag's reviews of two of Caro Ramsay's earlier books. I knew that I could look forward to what seemed like a cast of thousands and a complex plot. I wasn't disappointed. I knew too that I was joining a long-running and well-established series mid stream but I kept in mind that Ramsay fleshes out her characters well and I found it surprisingly easy to feel as though I was sitting in the middle of a busy office with them all around me. DCI Colin Anderson is now on cold cases - currently it's the rape of Gillian Witherspoon in August 1992. Costello's just emerging from a gruelling case of child abuse and her private life (what little time she gets for it) is looking a rather rocky.

It's a complex plot with threads involving child abuse and domestic violence, both of which are dealt with sensitively, but Ramsay makes it obvious that both exist where you least expect it. Most worrying to me was the trade in babies: numerous factors have meant that few healthy, white babies are put up for adoption and even then the tests to become a parent of one of these children are stringent and long lasting. They can of course be circumvented if only you have the five-to-six figure sum of money available. Is it illegal or is it just a 'private adoption'? Are the brokers simply putting a woman, who can't for one reason or another keep a baby, in touch with someone who is desperate to have one? And does the fact that a large sum of money has changed hands mean that the child will be loved?

Some books are satisfying. This was one of them and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'll definitely be looking out for the next in the Anderson and Costello series. I'd like to thank the publishers for making a copy available to the Bookbag.

If this series appeals to you then we think you might also enjoy Stuart MacBride's Logan McRae books.

You could get a free audio download of The Suffering of Strangers by Caro Ramsay with a 30-day Audible free trial at Amazon.co.uk.
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