While it has all the trappings of a police procedural, all the sleuthing of the titular characters leads to nothing but assorted red herrings. The motive is dropped suddenly into their laps in the 28th chapter (out of 32), the murderer in the 29th (who is then promptly confronted and dispensed with in the 30th), and they spend the last two chapters dithering about whether one of these characters will suddenly move to China??!! Very weirdly constructed whodunnit. Reading reviews, it sounds like the series used to be better and people are now only reading (and highly rating) out of habit. Unfortunately, this was my first (and now last) Barker & Llewelyn novel.