Catherine Berlin works for the financial regulator and tangles with a number of dodgy characters in the loan sharking industry. A particular one Doyle showed Hauxwell’s knowledge of the financial services sector and some humour in what is a dark storyline – “Making people pay was Doyles’s business. He had never believed in light touch regulation. An undisciplined system gave weak characters the opportunity to get weaker”.
Berlin is a flawed character that in many ways is very hard to like but I did. She is an independent woman who speaks her mind with assertiveness which by most of her male colleagues is seen as aggressive. Many readers will find her treatment in the workplace familiar. One of her flaws is a drug addiction and Hauxwell provides us with an insightful message on addiction management.
My first reading of “In Your Blood” was as an ebook. I was aware of the need for Berlin to sort out her supply within seven days but the hard copy version provides a much greater sense of urgency with the book divided into sections from The First Day to The Seventh Day.
“In her Blood’ has a complicated plot and we meet a wonderful but not necessarily likeable bunch of crooks and characters. Hauxwel’ls knowledge of the financial sector enables her to also delve into the issues that led to the global financial crisis, thus bringing additional credibility to her plot line. I can hardly wait until June when Berlin returns to our book shelves with ‘ A Bitter Taste” .