With British detective fiction so congested, crafting a compelling new detective, sidekick and ensemble seems a daunting prospect. Andrew Lowe managed this in fine style with the first entry in the Lennox and Blackwood series, The Whispering Bones, which introduced us to DCI Oswald Lennox and his quirky, promising understudy DC Olivia Blackwood. They may be generations apart in age and experience but the seemingly mismatched duo earned results in their work together. It felt like it offered a fresh detective story, urgent for the 2020s.
The Vanishing Room, the sophomore outing for the pair, follows close behind, with Blackwood being honoured for her role in solving the case and Lennox haunted by events, compounding his ongoing cognitive issues. The central mystery involves a missing eight-year-old. With no signs of forced entry or CCTV footage, how did the perpetrator enter the property?
Soon after a body is found, which forms a separate case, but the two are linked in ways not immediately obvious, with the police in a race to find the missing child and unearth the perpetrator. It takes a large contingent of officers to investigate an urgent case that pushes them to their limits stretched across London.
Lowe crafts another compelling mystery that upends expectations. The crime and tone do bring forth a gothic tone, which was also present in The Whispering Bones, again lending this series a unique voice. He manages to balance a blackness and darker tone with many of the tropes found in crime fiction.
Lennox’s memory loss and Blackwood’s neurodivergence – her ADHD – both feed into the story in crucial ways, within the confines of the case and also in their personal lives. Often the case can take a dominant role in contemporary detective fiction, but there is breathing room for them to feel like characters away from their desks and investigations.
Blackwood’s quirks once again prove an asset in solving a seemingly impossible case but frequently cause her to butt heads with more senior officers. Lennox is still a brilliant, capable detective, plagued by the death of his son and holding on to his mind to remain the best at his job. A trusty coffee is never far away. It truly feels like an equal billing, both allowed room to develop but not at the expense of the other.
It deepens the themes and character beats from the first book while being standalone enough for new readers to start here, a challenge for any ongoing series. The pair once again make for an original duo who have more in common than appears on the surface, both driven by a dogged determination to achieve results even if their means and methods differ substantially. Lowe perfectly captures the blend of Lennox’s era of detective with Blackwood’s more Millennial sensibilities and experiences.
A compelling villain is often at the heart of great detective fiction. Here, hearing from the perpetrator’s perspective more often and clearly identifying them does add a different, chilling layer, making this far from your standard cat-and-mouse investigation.
The Vanishing Room is a fine second outing in the Lennox and Blackwood series. It feels distinct from its predecessor while honouring and deepening its universe. With a third book due in 2027, The Holloway Screamer, the series has potential to run for years to come with many more compelling mysteries for the duo to solve.
Also see Tim Sullivan’s DS George Cross series.
Vinci Books
Print/Kindle
£9.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
