Det Annie Macpherson 02 - Programmed To Kill

ow in the middle of her six-month exchange with the Westford Connecticut
Police Department, Scottish Detective Annie Macpherson is barely tying
up the loose ends from her last case when a new one appears. The vicious
murder of a local priest has all the marks of a ritualistic attack, but
what is the motive behind it? Before they can answer that, Annie and
her colleague, Detective Dave Ellison, find they have another body on
their hands whose injuries are too similar for it to be coincidence. And
if that wasn’t enough, Annie’s love life has just got more complicated.

Joined by Detective Bronski, the third member of their team, they
find themselves drawn into a statewide investigation into child
pornography. Their lines of inquiry are tangled by parents who want to
take the law into their own hands, and instances of domestic abuse, not
to mention the question of how high the intrigue goes – can they even
trust their own police chief?

In her second Annie Macpherson novel, Barbara Fagan Speake once
again dissects the issues which drive her characters – the potent themes
of love, revenge and moral ambiguity. The twist here is that we also
see into the mind of the murderer, the desire to observe the reactions
of the victims, and the motivation of those who hide dark secrets behind
the face they present to the world.