The Blurb On The Back:

In 1989, a killer dumped the body of twenty-year-old Lucie Martin into a picturesque lake in the West of France.  Fourteen years later, a summer heat wave parched the earth exposing her remains amid the scorched mud and slime.

The killer was never found.  But now, forensic expert Enzo Macleod is reviewing the stone cold case – the toughest of those he has been challenged to crack.

When Enzo spots a flaw in the original investigation, he expects positive developments.  Yet he is in fact prising open a Pandora’s box – one very much designed to be kept closed – to the peril of himself, and everyone he loves.   

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The Review (Cut For Spoilers):

In 1989 Lucie Martin disappeared after telling her father she was going out for a walk.  Her body was only discovered in August 2003, when a prolonged heatwave dried up a local lake enough to reveal her bones, wrapped in plastic.  With her killer still free, she became the fifth case in Roger Raffin’s book.  Now forensic scientist Enzo Macleod has to solve the case as part of his €2,000 bet.

Lucie’s father, Guillaume is convinced that Regis Blanc, an ex-con and pimp, killed her.  Blanc had met Lucie through her charity work and Guillaume found a letter she received from Blanc revealing his dangerous obsession with her.  Blanc is already serving life for the brutal murder of three women and Guillaume has teamed up with five other families who are convinced that Blanc also killed their daughters.  But Enzo isn’t so sure and when he finds a flaw in the original investigation of Lucie’s murder, it leads him towards a nightmare conspiracy that’s so determined to keep its dark secret, it will target Enzo’s own family to stop him …

The sixth and last book in Peter May’s ENZO FILES SERIES is a dull, hackneyed affair with a 56-year-old pony tailed male lead who’s apparently irresistible to attractive women, a conspiracy that’s far too easy to guess, a ridiculous kidnap subplot and little sense of tension that all goes to make a disappointing read.  I picked this up without realising it was the last of a series but while I couldn’t follow all the soap opera antics of Macleod’s overly complicated family life, May does weave in key plot points from earlier books so you can follow what’s happened.  The problem is that there isn’t much tension or interest in the Lucie case – mainly because Macleod doesn’t seem that interested in it and where it ties in with the overarching plot, the joins are forced and the plot creaks.  Macleod is pure middle aged wish fulfilment and I didn’t believe in his relationships with any of the women in this book (although, as I said, I haven’t read the previous 5 books) and he doesn’t really do much investigating – relying on helpers and crashing from event to event.  The kidnap subplot served little purpose other than to make me laugh.  Ultimately I would check out May’s other series but won’t bother with the rest of this series.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.