The Girl in the Glass by James Hayman

Hi, everyone! Today I'm kicking off the TLC book tour for James Hayman's The Girl in the Glass.

Veronica Aimée Whitby had everything going for her: valedictorian of her graduating class, a noted athlete, artist, and an undeniable beauty, not to mention heir to the Whitby fortune. But then Aimée is found murdered on the very evening of her graduation party. 

McCabe and Savage catch the case, well aware that all eyes are on them as they investigate. They soon find that the Whitby golden girl may have been anything but. And strangely, her murder mimics that of her namesake - a crime that's over a century old. 

This is the latest in Hayman's McCabe and Savage series - the first of which, The Cutting, was a favorite read of mine back in 2009.

The Girl in the Glass actually begins with the 1904 murder of Aimée's great-great grandmother. An artist herself, the early Aimée was found near death at the bottom of a cliff with a stab wound to her abdomen and the letter "A" carved into her chest. All reports from that era claim that she was killed by her lover, Mark Garrison, an artist commissioned by Aimée's own husband to paint her portrait. Garrison committed suicide that same day.

Interestingly, as Aimée's case unfolds the reader is treated to another perspective of that earlier Aimée's story in the form of journal entries written by her bereaved husband. How the story pertains to the present-day murder is a mystery even to the reader throughout much of the story. This is something McCabe and Savage have to figure out as well when they realize their case mirrors that early one down to even the smallest details.

I somehow missed the books in between Cutting and Girl but for all the time that's passed I may very well have been starting over fresh with McCabe and Savage here. Not that it mattered all that much. The Girl in the Glass made me feel like I'd missed nothing but for a few failed relationships on McCabe's part. (I know that's definitely not the case but I never felt like there were gaping holes in my reading memory.)

I'd noted in my long ago review of The Cutting that readers would never tire of this kind of thriller as long as writers like Hayman continued to come up with such gripping plots. The Girl in the Glass most definitely reinforces that.

Rating: 3.5/5

To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on James Hayman and his work you can visit his website here. You can also like him on Facebook.