This HaBO is from Elaine, who is hoping to find this particular series:
The series I can’t remember is a British police series. The heroine is a sergeant and her boss is stalking her. They also get married during the first novel. She mentions that she could get some kind of section on him. I think that is for the mentally ill, but I might be wrong.
One of the first cases the heroine works on has something to do with her father.
Thanks so much.
Not entirely sure if this is a procedural series or a romance, but I’m very curious how the “stalker” aspect goes over.
Murder in Thrall by Anne Clelland?
Don’t know about the rest, but when the heroine talks about “sectioning” she’s using UK police slang for Section 36 of the Mental Health Act, which covers the procedure for imposing an involuntary psychiatric hold.
Yes! Murder in Thrall by Anne Cleeland. The first in the Acton and Doyle series.
Yes. Murder in Thrall was also my thought.
Wow, this is one of the first HaBOs that I’ve actually known. I love this series, but you’ve got to be able to accept him as the hero which might be problematic for some people, so approach with care.
I’d classify it as a police procedural with strong romantic elements. There’s also a class difference in that she comes from a lower middle-class Irish background while he’s a wealthy, upper-class English baron. Because he’s kind of obsessed with her, though, it doesn’t feel like a power imbalance. Plus, as if all that wasn’t enough, she’s got a touch of the Sight, so there’s also a paranormal element. Slightly crazy-sauce, but total catnip for me.
I might be into this.
Interesting.
For those who read it, was it good?
So good.
Very well written
I’ve put it on my “for later” shelf at the library. A nice feature on the website.
Bev, I enjoyed Murder in Thrall and the following books. The series was one of my favorite discoveries last year.
Reminds me of that anecdote in “The Gift of Fear” with the policeman who while in the training division stalked his future wife, one of the cadets. She wouldn’t date him until she graduated though, so one of them had boundaries. The guy only realised during professional development.
As a British reader, I found this book really frustrating because it was clear from the language and some of the plot points it was written by an American author and those really grated on me because they threw me right out of the book. I enjoyed the plot but the anachronisms really spoilt the book for me.
@Em, anachronisms have the same effect upon me. Historical accuracy is important to me and in this day of the Internet, research is quite easy so an author has no excuse to get it wrong. And I don’t mean using Wikipedia as a source, Maybe the articles and things cited in the footnotes of a wiki article can be useful, but I’ve seen a few too many errors in wiki to trust it.
Looks to me like Murder in Thrall fits all the points Elaine remembered.
?
I read the first few books in the series, but had to stop. I liked the concept much more than the execution. I got tired of how much focus was on a main character’s “psychic” instincts while ignoring simple common sense (or even police training, if one doesn’t have common sense).
I’ve heard others complain about the Americanisms in the series too, but the books are chock-full of expressions (as well as some Catholic religious beliefs) I’ve never heard of, so I don’t know where they came from. But it kept jarring me out of the story so much I had to stop reading. (I remember as I was reading wondering if these were peculiarly British expressions they were so unfamiliar to me.)
Note from Elaine: It’s the Acton & Doyle/New Scotland Yard series by Anne Cleeland!
I simply could not get past the hero-as-stalker, not to mention the imbalance of power in the relationship between the younger female detective and her boss. (And seriously, how does a guy with a felony on his record end up as a DCI of Scotland Yard?)