Babel

Scotland Yard's brilliant crime-solving duo, Kathy Kolla and David Brock, take on an unsettling new case that touches on the timeliest of issues, Arab fundamentalism, genetic engineering, and murder.

Scotland Yard's brilliant crime-solving duo, Kathy Kolla and David Brock, take on an unsettling new case that touches on the timeliest of issues, Arab fundamentalism, genetic engineering, and murder.

Following her ordeal at the end of Silvermeadow, Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla is on leave at the start of Babel, so burned out she is tempted to quit the force for good. But nothing can keep her from the hunt in this puzzling new case. Professor Max Springer, one of Britain's leading academics, has been brutally murdered on the steps of a London university. Springer was notorious for his stand against Islamic extremism, but was that motive enough to kill him?

While Kathy and Brock start looking for answers in London's Arab community, rivalries within the university point in another direction. Springer's colleague, a professor of medical genetics, becomes involved. Is he as dangerous and unethical as he seems?

Meanwhile, why would someone leak information about this sensitive investigation to the media, risking an explosion in the streets? In this taut and satisfying mystery, Barry Maitland proves once again that he is one of the masters of the police procedural writing today.