Maeve Kerrigan · #5
The Kill
Detective Maeve Kerrigan is away for a colleague's wedding, and she's enjoying an excuse to spend a beautiful fall weekend relaxing in the English countryside. It's a much-needed break from the grit and grime of her daily life on the London police force. But even at a wedding, the job is never far away.
Midway through the reception, Maeve and her abrasive but loyal partner on the police force, DI Josh Derwent, are called back to London. A fellow policeman has been murdered, in a compromising position in a public park at night. And when Maeve and Derwent arrive to speak with the victim's family, his wife and daughter are surprisingly cold and reticent, which adds further layers of complexity to an already delicate investigation. And Maeve knows the victim and his family aren't the only ones with things to hide: the dark secret that her boss, Superintendent Godley, has been keeping for years is threatening to blow up in his face, and if that happens, they'll all be caught in the aftermath.
Pulled between her loyalties to Godley, Derwent, the victim of a murder, and her own driving sense of right and wrong, Maeve will be forced to decide how much she's willing to risk in the name of justice in The Kill, Jane Casey's most intimate, compelling novel yet.
The series
In a city that never truly sleeps—where justice is messy and violence whispers from behind closed doors—the Maeve Kerrigan series carves out its own dark corner of the crime fiction world. With an unflinching eye for detail and a deep psychological undercurrent, these novels follow a young detective who must navigate not only the brutal crimes of London’s underbelly, but the quieter, more insidious dangers that come from within the very system meant to uphold the law.
Read full series description
The series begins in the early days of Maeve’s career, but it never indulges in tidy origin stories or quick moral resolutions. Instead, each installment peels back another layer—of Maeve, of her colleagues, of the city itself. The procedural framework is there, yes: evidence, suspects, high-stakes chases. But what lingers are the silences between the interviews, the tension in the squad room, the moments where instinct and ethics collide.
Through slow-burning suspense and sharp character work, the books explore themes of power, vulnerability, and the cost of ambition. Kerrigan herself is more than a detective—she’s a woman constantly negotiating her place in a world that underestimates her, a world that expects her to be both tough and soft, relentless and restrained. That quiet duality pulses through every case she takes on, whether she’s confronting serial killers, corruption, or the ghosts of her own past.
The atmosphere is tense, urban, and deeply human—less about solving the mystery and more about why people commit the acts they do. It's this emotional depth, paired with the intricacy of the investigations, that has earned the series a devoted following among readers of psychological thrillers and police procedurals alike.
For those drawn to stories where justice comes at a cost, and where the truth is rarely black and white, this is a series that doesn’t just ask who did it—but what it means when they do.
#0.5 · 2013Left for Dead 
#1 · 2010The Burning 
#2 · 2011The Reckoning 
#3 · 2012The Last Girl 
#4 · 2014The Stranger You Know 
#5 · 2014The Kill 
#6 · 2015After the Fire 
#7 · 2017Let the Dead Speak 
#7.5 · 2018One in Custody 
#8 · 2019Cruel Acts 
#8.5 · 2019Love Lies Bleeding 
#8.6 · 2020Silent Kill 
#9 · 2020The Cutting Place 
#10 · 2023The Close 
#11 · 2024A Stranger in the Family 
#12 · 2025The Secret Room 
#13 · 2027The Silent Neighbour Be the first reviewer
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