Fourteen years later a summer heatwave parches the earth, killing trees and bushes and drying out streams. In the scorched mud and desiccated slime of the lake a fisherman finds a skeleton wearing a bag over its skull. He watched the cars leave one after the other, headlights following tail lights down the hill, before gradually being swallowed by the night and the mist that was rising from the river and the lake. They carried their pain off into the darkness, where it would stay with them for the rest of their lives. There was nothing, he was very nearly certain, that he could do for any of them. Enzo Macleod is an interesting protagonist. Half Scottish, half Italian and brought up on the mean streets of Glasgow, well maybe not so mean if his parents could afford private education he has pursued his career in Toulouse where he is a professor of forensic science and yet, in this novel at least, forensics don't play a large part and when they do it is at someone else's instigation as he seems to prefer the old fashioned methods of questions, shoe leather and deduction. He is an appealing man - smart, attractive and very human with his rather dysfunctional family life (3 children with different mothers). I might have felt very differently about this story had I approached having read the previous episodes. Maybe I’d have found more empathy with Enzo and his entourage. But then again, maybe not. Distinctly average fare, I’m afraid.

The Fraysse family history is as twisted as Enzo's own. And in his pursuit of truth, the depths of deceit threaten to consume Enzo - and that which he cherishes most.

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The Chinese police have once more been forced to enlist the services of American forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell: this time to investigate a series of four horrific ritual executions that have taken place in Beijing. International Celtic Film and Television Festival (1996) Machair nominated for Best Drama Serial Award [8] Detective Li Yan senses a conspiracy surrounding the fatalities, and finds a female athlete willing to talk. But she will only trust one person: Li's fiancée, Margaret Campbell. I have only read the first book in this series and that was a few years and many books ago thus I'm not overly familiar with the series but Cast Iron reads well as a stand alone so it doesn't matter. There is a sense of tying off loose ends as befits the final novel in a series which is extremely satisfying but mostly it is a good read. The plot has plenty of twists and turns to keep the interest going and with new developments in every chapter it never flags. I think there will be a few surprises in it for series readers and the conclusion certainly came as a surprise to me. EXCERPT: It smells of animal here. Dead animal. Something that has been hung to ripen before cooking. Hundreds of years of fermenting grapes have suffused the earth with odours of yeast and carbonic gas, stale now, sour, a memory retained only in the soil and the sandstone and the rafters. like all the forgotten lives that have passed through this place, in sunlight and in darkness.

Fourteen years later, a summer heat wave parches the countryside, killing trees and bushes and drying out streams. In the scorched mud and desiccated slime of the lake, a fisherman finds a skeleton wearing a bag over its skull. But not long after meeting the Martins, Enzo feels ambushed when he finds himself in the middle of a gathering of the families of six young women who are missing or dead, all of whom believe a certain killer of three prostitutes is to blame. While a letter from pimp Régis Blanc was found in Lucie’s bedroom, he has a cast iron alibi for when she disappeared. His daughter is nearly killed, Enzo is mugged - and then he is arrested. Someone is trying to destroy his character. Someone is framing him for murder. Enzo talks to Lucie’s boyfriend, the ex-cop whom the families of the Bordeaux Six hired to investigate, Blanc’s wife and the women he pimped. He locates Lucie’s missing skull and makes a discovery that changes the whole complexion of the case. The more he hears, the less he is convinced that Blanc is Lucie’s killer.The first of Peter May's China critically acclaimed thrillers featuring Beijing detective Li Yan and American pathologist Margaret Campbell. Having read a number of the author’s books I think that the Lewis trilogy is by far the best as the books have gripping stories combined with a powerful evocation of the atmosphere of the Outer Herbrides, whereas, Cast Iron, set in France didn’t create any sense of the atmosphere of the country. Seven years on and the mystery still raw, Enzo Macleod, forensic investigator, forays into the heated world of haute cuisine to uncover bitter feuds and a burning secret.

Cast Iron is book six in the Enzo file series. Forensic expert Enzo Macleod made a bet to solve cold cases that journalist Roger Raffin has written about in a book, which includes the murder of Roger's wife Marie. In this, the sixth book is the murder of nineteen-year-old Lucie Martin that Enzo is trying to solve. However, it's a difficult case, and it gets personal when someone goes after someone Enzo loves. Prix Ancres Noires [42] (2012) L'Homme de Lewis (The Lewis Man) winner of the Prix des Lecteurs at the Les Ancres Noires book festival, Le Havre Archived copy". Archived from the original on 3 December 2021 . Retrieved 16 July 2022. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link) A grotesquely burned corpse found in a city park is a troubling mystery for Beijing detective Li Yan. Yan, devoted to his career as a means of restoring the respect his family lost during the Cultural Revolution, needs outside help if he is to break the case.The Enzo Files, if I’m being completely honest, is my least favourite series by Peter May. There have been some gripping moments, but I never fell for Enzo in the way I expected. There were too many things – specifically about Enzo as a character – that did not hold appeal, but I was interested in the overall storyline and wanted to see how the bet played out. For a while, this book tried to convince me my biggest fear for the series was going to play out, but it didn’t. In the end, it went for the resolution that was obvious from the start of this one.