There are multiple strands to the story, but at no time is there any hint of confusion as these are expertly handled, including the reappearance of Chris Swain the man who is stalking Maeve. This is a great story arc which despite being an extreme example accurately portrays the absolute single-minded nature of this kind of perpetrator. Now that really doesn’t sound like my kind of book, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt, because I had read, and very much enjoyed, Jane Casey’s previous book, The Missing. I’m very glad that I did, because The Burning is a very good psychological crime novel, and a wonderful step forward from Jane Casey’s first book: that was good, but this one is better. But how do you catch a killer no one has ever seen? And when so much of the evidence they leave behind has gone up in smoke. . .? The media call him The Burning Man, a brutal murderer who has beaten four young women to death, before setting their bodies ablaze in secluded areas of London's parks. And now the fifth victim has been found. The Burning, is an excellent follow up, with a psychologically interesting plot and complex, well-drawn characters Irish Independent

The Burning Man....well. Come on, I expected someone we'd gotten to know in the book. One of the officers. Maeve's boyfriend? Sam? Gil? Come on....but it was someone totally off the wall that wasn't written about at all. I was disappointed. And at the very heart of this book was Rebecca, for me its most complex and most interesting character. Her story, much of which was unknown to and unexpected by those closest to her, was extraordinary and yet utterly credible. Ja vind je ook niet? zei ik opgewekt, alsof ik wat hij zei letterlijk had opgevat. Sam posser raakte nergens opgewonden van, maar hij wist het lab om zijn vingers te winden, ze konden hem daar niet weerstaan.- If you are paying even moderate attention, it will become clear who the killer is, so it's not much of a mystery, but still falls into the police procedural category. I thought the characterization was splendid though, and painted a realistic look at what a female investigator has to cope with in a male dominated field.My only regret is that I missed book 5, and without realizing it, went ahead and read After the Fire. To make up for my carelessness, I now have The Kill (#5 in the series) heading this way. I love Maeve Kerrigan – what a terrific series Jane Casey has created’ Sarah Hilary, bestselling of author Someone Else’s Skin So if you enjoy, good realistic police procedurals, with engaging characters then I recommend you read this, or better still, give yourself a treat and start the series from the beginning.

Maeve Kerrigan and Josh Derwent (somewhat to their surprise) are once again partnered by their superior officer and sent to the scene of a fire in which one of the bodies may have political repercussions. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. The Burning is not the story of a serial killer but the story of one woman’s experience as that serial killer is sought. A human drama set around a murder investigation.The story itself is pretty good with a whodunnit weaving through though not completely a straighforward one. If I do have criticisms it's that I thought the ending didn't really meet with the calibre of what preceded it and I did come away a tad disappointed. That said I did like the laying out of characters and it did read with a feel of more to come. I'll definitely be reading more about DC Kerrigan to see how she develops. I thoroughly enjoyed this book; far more than I was expecting in fact, as it turned out to be more of a psychological thriller than a straight forward serial killer crime read. I found it fast-paced and I cared about the characters. If you are looking for a hard-boiled thrills-and-blood-spills book then you won’t find it here: The Burning Man is almost a side plot from what is really going on. DC Maeve Kerrigan is on the team working the case of a serial killer who is preying upon young women in South London, killing them and then burning their bodies. Maeve is a complicated character and has her own issues which will add to the series interest and give her a lot more depth as a character.

The ending - no spoilers - was solid, too, and I appreciated the extra mile the author went to in wrapping things up. No sudden jolts to a stop at the moment of arrest; it's not as common with British crime novels, but I still appreciate when it doesn't happen.The plot is solid, but there were several times in the book when the author spent too much time in one place and the momentum slowed to a crawl and the story became dull and lifeless. I love Maeve Kerrigan - what a terrific series Jane Casey has created' Sarah Hilary, bestselling of author Someone Else's Skin