View source for Little Doubt (D I Kelly Porter) by Rachel Lynch

{{infobox1
|title=Little Doubt (D I Kelly Porter)
|author=Rachel Lynch
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Crime
|summary=Two murders within twenty-four hours - one of a well-to-do woman and the other a girl from the local sink estate.  The Superintendent wants to be involved in  the first but isn't bothered about the second.  How's DI Kelly Porter going to cope?
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=320
|publisher=Canelo
|date=March 2020
|isbn=978-1788637893
|website=https://www.canelo.co/company/blog/meet-author-rachel-lynch/
|cover=B083NMCSZX
|aznuk=1788637895
|aznus=1788637895
}}

Ella Watson was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  She was out running in the park when she was randomly attacked and stabbed to death.  Her husband, Thomas, and children, Jordan and Millie were devastated and Detective Superintendent Neil Ormond was outraged that a decent, middle-class woman should be the victim of knife crime. Despite being a golfing partner of Thomas Jordan he declined to distance himself from the case and told DI Kelly Porter that he would be taking a great deal of interest in how the case was handled.  He wasn't anywhere near as interested when a second woman was stabbed to death a few hours later.  Keira Bradley lived on the Beacon estate and Ormond's view seemed to be that anyone living there should expect this sort of thing to happen.  He could hardly bring himself to mention Keira's name.

Kelly Porter hoped that Ormond would leave her to get on with the investigation, but she wasn't going to be that lucky.  Ormond even had someone he was convinced was guilty and lack of evidence was something which could easily be rectified.  Normally Kelly would have been able to rely on her team, but this time she was concerned about DS Will Phillips, who seemed to have something on his mind, but was unwilling to discuss it.  His only confidante was PC Liam Brook: in fact, the two seemed to be inseparable.

I've long been a fan of Rachel Lynch's DI Kelly Porter series.  It's great to see the ''real'' Lake District - not the one the tourists know.  This one has sink estates with people who are never going to get a reasonable chance in life.  Lynch does an exceptional job of bringing out the life the residents of Beacon Estate lead - and how they get into crime and violence, frequently through no fault of their own.  It was great to see Keira's mother, Sharon Bradley, bring the estate together to fight the injustices which she saw all around her.

Kelly Porter is a great lead character: determined to see justice done and non-judgemental about the lives the people on Beacon Estate.  She sees no need to go in mob-handed just to show who's in charge.  Her team works well with her, although on this occasion Kelly tended to dominate with just a little heard from Rob and Emma.  We had a pretty good idea as to who the baddies were from early on.  The ne'er-do-wells on the estate are more nuanced than Detective  Superintendent Ormond, who is a bit two-dimensional, but that's a minor quibble in an otherwise very readable book. 

There's a twist at the end which I suspected was coming, but it's certainly left me looking forward to the next book in the series!  I'd like to thank the publishers for making a copy of the book available to the Bookbag.

The book reads perfectly well as a standalone, but you will get more out of it if you've read the [[Rachel Lynch's DI Kelly Porter Novels in Chronological Order|series]] from the beginning - and it's really no hardship!

[[Rachel Lynch's DI Kelly Porter Novels in Chronological Order]]

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