Don't Leave Me This Way

Loretta Lawson, Joan Smith's lecturer sleuth, makes her third appearance in Don't Leave Me This Way. Thoughtful, humorous, vulnerable, full of real doubts and emotions, Loretta Lawson is one of the most fully-realized characters in crime fiction; and her milieu is thoroughly convincing. Smith is brilliant at pacing narrative, maintaining suspense while delivering the plot in a completely open-handed way. In the race to the finish, the reader is neck-and-neck with Loretta.