Detective’s Daughter

The British author Lesley Thomson has been writing for a number of years now, having put out a variety of crime and thriller novels, as she’s known within her field largely for her gift of being able to combine both suspense and character seamlessly, giving her stories a unique and idiosyncratic feel to them. Growing up in Sussex in England, it’s no surprise that many of her stories have a distinctively British feel to them, in both their sense of ambiance and atmosphere, along with their use of location and where they are set. Knowing and understanding her audience has been a key and integral component in this as she has managed to simultaneously speak to them, whilst clearly holding a firm grasp upon the genre itself. All of this has also allowed her to create a variety of series and franchises over the course of her career as well, as they follow the arcs of various protagonists throughout each installment and release. One series to do this particularly well is that of her ongoing ‘Detective’s Daughter’ series of novels, which are definitely excellent examples of the genre. Set in West London, it follows one Stella Darnell, a daughter of a senior detective working within the Metropolitan police, as he’s spent many years upon the force, refining and honing his skills. Stella is a natural for detective work, given that she is able to immediately pick-up on all the various clues and can always get to the bottom of any case. Using her cleaning methods acquired over the years, she finds herself to be extremely adept at the profession of detection, as she unpeels the evidence getting through to the truth. Her father, Terry Darnell, had spent a lifetime on the police force, and could see a gift in his daughter, something which also progresses over the course of the series as a whole.