A Poisoned Mind

In A Poisoned Mind, Natasha Coopers long-term heroine Trish Maguire has is savouring her new status as a QC when she is assigned a case a case which is not to her taste: she is to act for Clean World Waste Management, a company whose tanks that have detonated with one fatality: a farmer. Trish finds her loyalties sorely tested when she encounters the farmer's widow, fighting the company in David versus. Goliath fashion. Trish's personal life is as conflicted as her professional; David, her half-brother, David, has become friends with the barely-civilised child Jay Smith, The latter disturbs Trish who wonders about his potentiality for being rescued from a nigh-wild existence. And a violent incident involving Jay, inevitably happens just as Trish is uncovering webs of deceit involving corporate double-dealing and kickbacks. , A Poisoned Mind is one of Natasha Coopers most trenchant novels, full of the usual authoritative plotting, but also taking on board a an stringent picture of British society that a world away from the more orthodox crime fiction that those who have not read her think is Coopers métier. In fact, she is one tough writer - if the idea of reading a book with a heroine called Trish doesn't appeal, you are doing yourself a disservice. --Barry Forshaw