The Suitcase Killings by Miles Tripp

This is my first book by Miles Tripp. I picked up the book because of the title. The abstract was enough for me to pick up this book from the library shelves. I enjoyed reading this book. It is set in London and surrounding countryside, in particular around Hertfordshire, which made me smile as I had lived around there for 25 years. It evoked memories of ‘back home’ when home now has become this new country. Strange how where one thinks ‘home’ is can change, as there was a time when Hertfordshire was new country and ‘back home’ was India. But I digress and must return to the novel.

A young man is forced into making a trip to Europe and to bring back a suitcase. He believes that this will cancel out huge gambling debts that he has incurred. Upon return to UK, he is asked to keep the suitcase until ordered to transport it. Thinking it might be safer not to have it in his flat, for if he got burgled and lost this suitcase he would be in grave danger. He put this suitcase in the basement of his apartment block which was locked with the key kept by the caretaker. He then gets invited to a wedding reception and goes to it with the girlfriend of the club owner who he was indebted to. Well she was accompanying him to keep an eye on him.

The intrigue starts when this young man gets murdered, shot outside the reception hall. The accompanying woman takes his jacket and hand bag leaving no trace of his identity and makes a run for it. The story now starts being told from different viewpoints. One is from what the club owner does to retrieve his suitcase which cannot be found in the flat. The other is from the private detective’s view as he is attempting to find who killed this young man, when he gets hired by the father to look into his disappearance initially and then his death.

The descriptions of places and people are well written and the style of writing is that of a narrative. It is one of those books you can pick up read a bit and put down but get right back into it when you pick it up next. The plot was intricate as there were essentially 2 mysteries – a murder and drug smuggling. The detective is a very sharp man and works at getting information which has not been made available to the police, by the people who do not want to get involved in murder investigations. You also learn something about the character of the man and he is indeed likable.

The end is definitely a surprise and so is the identity of the murderer. I will look forward to reading more of this author as I liked the gentle pace and the well maintained mystery in this story.