View source for Fallen Angel (Gaby Darin Book 3) by Jenny O'Brien

{{infobox1
|title=Fallen Angel (Gaby Darin Book 3)
|author=Jenny O'Brien
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's the third book in the series but works well as a stand-alone - and it ''will'' keep you reading into the early hours of the morning, as promised.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=384
|publisher=HQ Digital
|date=November 2020
|isbn=
|cover=B08BTXSS84
|aznuk=B08BTXSS84
|aznus=B08BTXSS84
}}
Acting DI Gaby Darin is twiddling her thumbs: the usual flood of cases has slowed to less than a dribble and she's looking through cold cases for inspiration as to which one she should have a good look at.  DS Owen Bates suggests the murder of eighteen-year-old Angelica Brock in 1995 and Gaby is intrigued.  She can't see any immediate failings in the original investigation: Angelica disappeared from a room in a securely-locked house, wearing her pyjamas, and was found dead by a dog walker on the Gt Orme in Llandudno the next day.  She was wearing a hand-made nightdress which her mother had never seen before.  Bates hasn't ''quite'' told the whole story: he's married to Kate Brock, Angelica's younger sister.

Darin thinks it's worth having a good look at the case but Owen Bates can't really be involved, given his relationship to the victim.  He's looking into the case of a gas explosion in which a woman in her forties was killed, shortly after her husband committed suicide.  Everyone suspects that it's just a case of a tragic accident and the paperwork will close it down but the husband is aggressively protective of his rather timid wife.

Time is pressing.  Will Darin and her team be able to get a result before there are new cases which will have to take precedence?  It's a good team.  Jax Williams is thinking of leaving home and moving in with his girlfriend: he's gaining a quiet, impressive confidence.  Malachy Devine ''looks'' confident but that might be deceptive.  Darin can't quite understand how someone on the post-degree national detective programme and paid just £21,000 a year can afford designer clothes and to drive a Jag.  Marie Morgan has problems at home: her husband has moved another woman into their home and Marie has been forced into a shoe-box bedsit.  She feels that she's wasted ten years of her life.  Gaby Darin's in a strange situation: there's obviously some chemistry between her and Dr Rusty Mulholland but she's not certain and he's, well, rather changeable.

I first met Gaby Darin when I read [[Silent Cry (Gaby Darin Book 1) by Jenny O'Brien|Silent Cry]] in April 2020.  I wasn't ''totally'' convinced by the book, the series opener, but was more than happy to read this, the third book in the series and I'm glad that I did.  Rank becomes Darin - she's grown into herself and there was an excellent dynamic between her and the team.  There's obviously been a book between the first and this book, but I didn't feel that there was any problem in having missed that book - or that it wouldn't be worthwhile to go back and read the missing story at some point in the future.  We know Darin was injured but there are no spoilers.

HQ Digital suggest that these are stories which will keep you reading into the early hours of the morning and that's certainly what happened to me.  There came a point when I simply couldn't have stopped reading because I had to know what happened.  I did work out who the wrong 'un was but I didn't get all the reasoning and it didn't spoil my enjoyment of what was a cracker of a book.  From being 'interested to read about what she does next' I've moved to 'must be sure of getting hold of the next in the series'.  I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.

[[Jenny O'Brien's Detective Gaby Darin Novels in Chronological Order]]

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