View source for The Misper by Kate London

{{infobox1
|title=The Misper
|sort=Misper
|author=Kate London
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's the fourth book in the series and although it can be read as a standalone, you'll get more from it if you've read earlier books in the series.  Subtle and clever plotting.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=400
|publisher=Corvus
|date=August 2023
|isbn=978-1838954482
|website=https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/kate-london
|cover=1838954481
|aznuk=1838954481
|aznus=1838954481
}}
Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there's no doubt about that.  He was the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw.  He pulled the trigger but due to the vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of both the murder and the manslaughter of the officer.  And so lives must go on.  For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedy.

For DC Lizzie Griffiths, it's more complicated.  She's still with the Met - and she's the mother of Kieran's Shaw's toddler son, Connor.  If you've been reading [[Kate London's Metropolitan Police Series in Chronological Order|Kate London's Metropolitan Police series]] you'll be familiar with the background to this book - and here's a conundrum.  If you haven't read at least one of the earlier books in this excellent series, then you're going to have to work hard to get the depth of what's happened in the past, to link up the various plot strands - and you're also going to know ''exactly'' what happens if you do choose to read the earlier books.  If you have read the earlier books, then you'll appreciate the subtlety of this story.

And it is subtle and well-plotted.  At its heart is the story of two fifteen-year-old boys who become involved in drug running - county lines.  One boy, Leif, has a mother who is deeply committed to saving her son, to getting him back on the right tracks.   It's a disturbing read because the desperation of the characters ''bleeds'' from the page and the reader feels that there's little in the way of hope for any of them.  What makes it feel more authentic is the fact that Kate London is a former Metropolitan police officer: you sense that this is how it really is.

At first, I struggled to understand why I found this book so disturbing and so depressing and finally concluded that it's the first book where the mother of a child involved in country lines plays such a prominent part.  It brought home to me very vividly how I would have felt in the same situation.  I'd still like to thank the publishers for making a copy available to the Bookbag.

We can recommend that you start with [[Post Mortem by Kate London|the first book in this series]] - we doubt that you'll regret it!

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