Fatal Witness by Robert Bryndza

 

DI Erika Foster is a Polish immigrant who came to England and has worked her way up to DI, heading a team of other police officers.  She has just moved into a new house and too tired to cook, has walked a block or so to get dinner.  As she is returning, she is met with screams.  Rushing to see what is happening, she discovers a woman and a body.  The woman had some to check on her sister, Vicky, as she hadn't come to work that day.  Instead she found the bloody body, stabbed and joints dislocated.

Erika calls in her team and they start to work the case.  The victim lived in a small apartment building.  Living there are two Bulgarian sisters here to train as doctors, a man who travels on business most of the year, an elderly woman, a middle-aged man who is the victim's neighbor and the owner of the building, a woman who has taken the entire top floor as her apartment.  The middle-aged man comes under immediate suspicion as he is carrying a bag which he refuses to let the police inspect.  Before all is done, he ends up jumping out a window while trying to flee and hurting himself.  Erika and her team take him to the station where it comes to light that his brother is high up in the police structure.

Who could have done this crime?  Was it Eddie the next door neighbor?  Her brother-in-law with whom she had a terrible relationship?  Her former boyfriend?  Vicky had been a podcaster and her focus was true crime.  Was this a crime to stop her from investigating a case?  

This is the seventh novel in the Erika Foster series.  I liked Erika who has a can-do attitude and who is frustrated by all the rules and procedures that must be followed.  She is friends with a wide variety of people and during the case, reunites with her first boyfriend from Poland, who is actually delivering her new furniture.  The plot is involved enough to be satisfying.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did an excellent job.  Robert Bryndza is known for his crime novels although he started out as an actor, switching to writing when one of his plays was selected for production.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.