The lives of friends and colleagues are inextricably and inexplicably linked in this gritty London drama. Cath, cleaning lady to the boisterous and happy Eliot family and to Helen West, Crown Prosecutor with a complicated relationship status, receives terrible beatings from her husband.

Unfortunately, that's about as far as I got into the plot as I gave up at page 102. More than a third of the way into the book I thought there really ought to be a plot going, and if the circumstances are so dire, more of the characters need to be likeable (see Kate Atkinson's When Will There Be Good News). ( )

A Clear Conscience is a dense, layered crime novel set in London. Inspector Bailey and his lover/sometimes collaborator Helen the lawyer are embroiled in a series of sordid crimes revolving around bar fights that descend into murder, plus the recurring bouts of wifebeating Helen’s new cleaning lady suffers. The mundane, banal nature of these very human crimes rings true, and the story is concluded well – even if it doesn’t exactly end well.

Frances Fyfield writes with confidence and power; the elegance and vividness of her prose recalls P D James – high praise indeed.

The only lack here is the deep, sustaining narrative drive – that delicious sense of needing to know what happens next – that characterizes the best crime novels. Fyfield’s plotting is more allusive and elliptical; events move forward, but jaggedly and often accidentally, much as they do in real life. This is not exactly a flaw, but it kept me from finding this otherwise very fine novel completely compelling. ( )