Growing up in a London family with ties to organized crime, Detective Constable Cat Kinsella knows the criminal world better than most cops do. As a member of the city’s Metropolitan Police, she’s made efforts to distinguish herself from her relatives. But leading an upstanding life isn’t always easy, and Cat has come close to crossing the line, a fact she keeps well hidden from her superiors.
The mark of a well-written story is one that immerses the reader and transports them into the writing. That’s exactly what Caz Frear accomplishes ... intricately marries a strong heroine, her dark past, a grisly crime, and the inner workings of British law enforcement ... While this is the third in a series, Frear does a seamless job of bringing the reader up to speed on Kinsella, her personal life, and most importantly, her job as Detective Constable ... Although Frear keeps the reader on the edge of their seat while twisting through the labyrinth of Holly’s murder, there is also a very human element established. We are continually shown Kinsella’s vulnerable side through her relationships with her father, sister, and boyfriend—all of whom are intrinsically tied to her job as Detective Constable. The reader comes to care for her and the outcome of her life, rather than just along for the ride in her investigation, which is a feat in the crime thriller genre ... Overall, Frear has done an exemplary job with Shed No Tears. To say that this was a book I couldn’t put down would be an understatement. I believe Cat Kinsella is a detective that the world of literature will be seeing more of, and I very much look forward to that.
... Frear seldom strays from the tenets of the police procedural in her third well-plotted novel about Det. Constable Cat Kinsella ... Frear skillfully guides Shed No Tears to a solid conclusion that is as believable as it is surprising. Beginning with her 2018 debut Sweet Little Lies, Frear has proven to be a talent to watch.
Frear’s writing is intense and suspenseful, with a perfect balance of red herrings and dogged pursuit of the truth. She spills Kinsella’s stresses a bit at a time, from a first-person point of view that always hides something ... Frear’s writing has the sharp dark tang that Tana French exhibits, and she updates the British crime narrative to the dangerous conflicts of loyalty that Stuart Neville paints best, with their hungry roots in the ever-decomposing past. If there’s a single weak spot in Shed No Tears, it’s in the overly optimistic ending. Yet with Frear’s record to judge from, it’s a good bet that the sequel to come will turn out to be more menacing and dangerous than Kinsella could have guessed, even from her own family’s experience.
