Changes

The girl had once been a promising athlete, but injury and then addiction to prescription painkillers changed her completely. Eventually she was driven to commit suicide in the most gruesome way - by throwing herself off a cliff in the Lake District. It worried DI Kelly Porter, but she had no reason to investigate, although several of her cases keep bringing her back to the girl's school and a darker story emerged. One of the pupils goes missing at the local fair: her best friend is the girl who has accused a teacher of luring her to his flat and then sexually assaulting her. It seems that the teacher also has paedophilia on his computer, but the downloading eerily coincides with the girl's visit to his flat. What is going on, but - most importantly - where is Faith?

I liked Porter the first time I met her. She has family values without necessarily wanting to have one herself. Her boyfriend, Johnny - who's in Mountain Rescue - is her rock, but she has no need to be married to him. She's developing a good relationship with his teenage daughter. Her mother has terminal cancer and she does her best to be there for her, but at least one of her sisters believes that she puts the job before the family - but that's Nikki all over. Then there's the matter of her father, well, both of them... All the characters come off the page well and live in your mind.