The Burning

New author for me but this was such a good, twisty procedural that I may seek out more by Jane Casey, as this is the first in a series with DC Maeve Kerrigan of the London Police Force major crimes unit as the protagonist. Kerrigan is of Irish heritage and, as such, continually suspect among her British colleagues, to say nothing of being a woman in a highly male and sexist job environment. In this debut novel, Maeve is finding that her well-to-do boyfriend and flat mate, Ian, seems more and more like he is from a foreign planet rather than just a higher social strata. He, in turn, has run out of patience with Maeve's determined focus on her job at the expense of everything else.  The case that drags her out of bed as the story opens is a serial killer who beats his young female victims to death and then sets them on fire. This time, however, Maeve thinks there is something off about the murder, like maybe some copycat just wants the police to think it is the serial killer. Maeve has trouble convincing her immediate superior, but the head of the task force is also not so sure about this and sets Maeve the task of finding out more about the woman. Maeve digs in but does not want to lose her toe hold on the serial killer task force. She gets more than she bargained for when an undercover sting puts her directly in the path of the killer and she is almost killed. Although Maeve thinks of herself as a failure in the appearance department--hair always awry, clothes never quite right--she is beginning to notice more than professional interest from her fellow DC on the task force, Rob Langton. If you like police procedurals, this one is really well wrought with a feminist twist and the added attraction of being set in England. Reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.