Bleeding Heart Yard (Harbinger Kaur #3) by Elly Griffiths

DI Harbinder Kaur is thrilled to be in charge of a Murder Investigation Team based in West Kensington; finally living in in a share house in London and no longer under her parent’s roof. She’s still finding her feet, and looking for ‘the right moment’ to come out to her team. She also wants to ‘show her colleagues that she may be a diminutive Sikh woman, but she enjoys a pint as much as the next Met detective’.

One of her team, DS Cassie Fitzherbert is at a school reunion where another ex-student, Garfield Rice, is found murdered. As Rice was an eminent MP, Harbinger is under pressure from above to find the murderer. Cassie can’t be involved in the investigation, but she has an uneasy feeling that one of her old school friends could be responsible.

Bleeding Heart Yard is a real place in London and even gets a mention in Dickens’ Little Dorrit! When a second ex-student, also an MP, is found murdered on the cobblestones of the Yard, Harbinder’s team concentrate their investigation on the ex-students who were members of The Group, as they called themselves back in 1998; and Cassie was a member of this group. Could their colleague be involved in these murders? And do they relate to the ‘accidental’ death of a student back in 1998? Is Cassie a murderer?

This is a straight forward police procedural, but we also see the development of Harbinder’s character, as she confidently leads the investigation, and also begins to find personal happiness. I look forward to more investigations with DI Harbinger Kaur.

Reviewed by Gaby Meares
Murder on a Monday Reading Group